


Fake It Til You Make It

by nikkiRA



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blow Jobs, Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Kiss, Frottage, M/M, Mutual Pining, Non-Explicit Sex, Pining, Sex Pollen, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-08-10 07:56:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 26,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7836556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nikkiRA/pseuds/nikkiRA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“No, it’s not that –” Keith tries to backtrack. “We just – we –” he isn’t sure what he’s going to say, he just knows he has to say something before he and Lance are forced to have sex with some weird alien species, while also keeping the weird alien king happy enough to create an alliance with them.</p><p>But not for the first time and not for the last, Lance pulls through.</p><p>Of course, this time pulling through almost gives Keith a heart attack, because Lance slips his fingers through Keith’s so that they’re holding hands.</p><p>“What Keith here means to say,” Lance says, and although his voice is steady, he is gripping Keith’s fingers so tightly it’s painful. “Is that we can’t mate with your people, although we, um, appreciate the offer, because, well. We already are. M-mated, I mean. With, you know. Each other.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The Tezzuk are a made up race. I came up with the name by basically mashing letters together but the idea of them being genderless until mating is something i got from the left hand of darkness, a book by ursula k le guin that is very good

“This is a bad idea.”

“I find most things involving you are.”

Lance gives him an offended look. “Um, rude.”

“Um, true.”

“It’s not like this was my idea! I’m not too happy about it either.”

Keith pinches the bridge of his nose. “Let’s just get through this.”

Lance makes a noise of agreement.

The planet they’re on is beautiful, not that Keith has been focusing much on it. He has more important reasons to be here.

They have been in space for a while, now, and although they have figured out – for the most part – the ins and outs of Voltron, Allura and Shiro both thought that in order to finally beat the Galra, they were going to need allies. And so here he was, with Lance of all people, sent out as an envoy to the Tezzuk, asking for assistance in the fight against the Galra.

Why he decided that he and Lance were the best options for this mission, he had no idea. Sure, Shiro was still a little woozy from that weird plant thing that had bit him on the last planet they visited, and Pidge always preferred technology to people, but he still thinks that Hunk could have taken a break from trying to repair Lance’s lion to maybe tag along.

The Tezzuk were expecting them, so when he and Lance reach the palace, they are taken immediately to see the King.

The Tezzuk were mostly humanoid, if a little yellow, as if the entire race had jaundice. Their ears were pointed like Allura’s, although the Tezzuk’s are more pronounced. They were genderless, as well, although the King was still called the King.

Keith was just _waiting_ for Lance to say something offensive.

When they are brought before the King, he and Lance both bow.

“I have never seen a human,” the King says, surveying them both with interest. “How do you hear with such little ears?”

Lance makes a noise that Keith vaguely understands to mean _why are aliens so obsessed with ears?_

“Your highness,” Keith says. “You know why we have come.”

“Because you are on a suicide mission, and because you have such little regard for your own lives, you expect me to have similar disregard for my subjects.”

Great. This was a really good start. Keith searches his mind for a response to this, but to his surprise, Lance beats him to it.

“There are no neutral sides in this war, your highness. The Galra will notice your planet eventually, and they will attack. You are either against the Galra, or you are with them.”

“So then why should I take up against them?”

Keith resists the urge to groan.

“The Galra will not invade peacefully. Even if you ally yourself with them, they will take control of your planet and will force every perso – er, Tezzuk to work for them. If you ally yourself with us, you will keep your planet, and _you_ will be the one to decide your contribution.”

“The Galra don’t form alliances,” Keith adds. “They just take.”

The King studies the two of them before finally saying, “I shall think it over. I will need to listen to my counsel. Are you hungry from your journey?”

Keith opens his mouth to say no, it really wasn’t much of a journey, their ship is literally in orbit right now, but Lance opens his mouth.

“Yeah, actually, that would be great.”

Keith resists the urge to roll his eyes. Just when he was starting to appreciate having Lance with him.

They are led through a bunch of rooms until they reach some kind of dining area. They take seats beside each other.

“That was impressive,” he mutters to Lance. “Didn’t know you had such inspiring speeches in you.”

“I don’t need the sarcasm, Keith,” he says. Keith doesn’t bother explaining that he wasn’t being sarcastic.

Servants put down a plate of what Keith assumes to be food. Lance pokes at it experimentally.

“Can you believe aliens have such advanced technology but they still haven’t figured out solid foods?”

Keith isn’t hungry, but he doesn’t want to seem rude, so he eats a few bites. It isn’t bad, exactly. Just different.

“Do you think he’ll agree to an alliance?”

“Yeah,” Lance says. “He’s gotta know how bad the Galra are. I think he just wants to make us wait.”

Keith didn’t really want to sit here and put up with some jaundiced alien king’s power trip, but he guesses he doesn’t really have much of a choice.

Eventually him and Lance are summoned back to the throne room.

“All right, humans. I have considered your offer.”

 _Our offer to not leave you to be taken over by Galra?_ He thinks.

“It is dangerous, siding with you. It puts a bigger target on our backs. So in return for our assistance, we have a request.”

What more could they possible want other than protection against the Galra?

“We will do our best to meet any demands you have,” Lance says slowly.

“The paladins of Voltron will be hailed as heroes, if you do defeat Zarkon.”

“If?” Lance says. Keith elbows him.

“This is what I ask in return – you, two of the paladins of Voltron, will mate with two of my subjects, to ensure the success of our people.”

Both Lance and Keith stare in bewilderment at the King.

“Excuse me?” Keith’s voice breaks half way through.

“Mate?” Lance asks, voice unnaturally high.

“Indeed. Voltron has long been nothing but a legend. To find out that it is real – well. I want my planet to be a part of the legend.”

“By us,” Lance says shakily. “Mating with your citizens.”

“We will be forever linked to the heroes of the galaxy. The Tezzuk will be known to all.”

“We can’t _mate_ with your people.”

“Oh?” The Tezzuk don’t have eyebrows, but Keith gets the feeling that if they did, the King’s would be raised. “You are not interested in our terms of alliance?”

“No, it’s not that –” Keith tries to backtrack. “We just – we –” he isn’t sure what he’s going to say, he just knows he has to say _something_ before he and Lance are forced to have sex with some weird alien species, while also keeping the weird alien king happy enough to create an alliance with them.

Yeah. Keith has no fucking idea.

But not for the first time and not for the last, Lance pulls through.

Of course, this time pulling through almost gives Keith a heart attack, because Lance slips his fingers through Keith’s so that they’re holding hands.

“What Keith here means to say,” Lance says, and although his voice is steady, he is gripping Keith’s fingers so tightly it’s painful. “Is that we can’t mate with your people, although we, um, appreciate the offer, because, well. We already are. M-mated, I mean. With, you know. Each other.”

“ _Excuse me?”_

Lance squeezes his fingers and gives him a warning look. “C’mon, babe, don’t be embarrassed.”

He was going to kill Lance – sure, Lance had just spared him from weird alien sex, but he was still going to kill him.

“Keith is a little shy, your highness. He didn’t mean to offend, it’s just, well – we can’t mate if we’re already mated.”

Lance is talking completely out of his ass; there was no way the King was going to believe this.

But to Keith’s utter disbelief, the King smiles and claps his hands together. “You should have said before! Of course, young humans, I would never ask you to leave your mate. But, in that case, I have another request. If you cannot give us the honour of mating, at least give us the honour of your presence at our mating ceremony. Stay with us until then. It is in just seven turns of this planet.”

“Um.”

“We would be honoured.” This time it is Keith who speaks. “But for now me and my, uh –”

“Mate,” Lance fills in. Keith could almost swear he was enjoying himself.

“Yes,” Keith says through gritted teeth. “We would very much like to have some rest, if you would be so generous.”

“Ah, yes, yes, of course.” The King motions to another one of the Tezzuk, who springs to attention. “Kindly bring our guests to their room.”

Keith does not miss the singular form of room. Lance does not let go of his hand the whole way, but as soon as the door shuts behind them, Keith lets go of it as if it were burning him and turns on Lance.

“What the _fuck?”_

“I’m sorry, were you particularly eager to fuck some random alien? Because I’m pretty sure I just saved both of our asses!”

“Why did you have to say we were dating _each other?”_

“I don’t know, Keith, I was under a bit of pressure! I just figured it would be more believable! Never mind that, you were the one who agreed to go to the ceremony! Do you even know what that is?”

Keith lets out a groan of frustration. “I don’t know, it’s probably just a marriage ceremony but we had to give him _something.”_ He sits down on the edge of the bed. He is dealing with too much to focus on the fact that there is only one bed, although he certainly notices.

He activates the calling pod Allura had given him. Pidge’s face comes into view.

“Hey guys, what’s –”

“How long does it take for this planet to turn?”

Pidge blinks at him. “Um, what?”

Lance leans over his shoulder. “He means hi Pidge, could you please find out how long a day is on this planet?”

“Oh, sure. One second, let me just –” the screen goes black, which might be concerning except that’s how Pidge said goodbye.

“I still can’t believe you did that.”

“You know, all I’m hearing right now is ‘I want to have weird possibly kinky sex with aliens.’”

Keith blushes. “I don’t – I don’t want to fuck aliens, but now we have to pretend to be dating – say the word mate one more fucking time – for who knows how long!”

Lance claps a hand on Keith’s shoulder. “Keith. Buddy. Next time I’ll let you fuck the alien.”

“You are so fucking annoying,” Keith says, just as Pidge calls back.

“Twenty-two hours. That’s how long a day is.”

Keith doesn’t know how to feel about that. On the one hand, it was basically a whole week; on the other hand, it could have been way, way worse.

“That’s a week then, give or take.”

“What’s going on?”

“We have to stay here until some kind of mating ceremony. Then the King will ally himself with us. Hey, do you think you could find out what that is?”

“Space doesn’t have google, Keith.”

“Then ask Allura.”

“Allura is basically space google, anyway,” Lance says, over his shoulder again. Keith stands up to move away from Lance.

“I’ll find Allura and call back,” Pidge says.

“Okay.”

“Thank you,” Lance adds. “Jesus, Keith, I know you don’t need manners in the desert but would it kill you to be polite?”

“I don’t know, and I’m not eager to find out.”

“I think that might have been a joke,” Lance says thoughtfully. He collapses backwards onto the bed and spreads out. “Are we going to discuss this whole one bed thing?”

“There’s nothing to discuss. You can sleep on the couch.”

“Why do I get the couch?”

“Because it’s your fault that we only have one bed!”

“You’re so ungrateful,” Lance says, and Keith can’t respond, because at that moment Pidge calls back.

They are very pale.

“What is it?”

“What did space google say?”

“Um. So I asked Allura, right. About the mating ceremony. And she said, uh. Well.”

“It’s consummation.” Allura appears behind Pidge, and she looks just as concerned.

“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” Lance asks, actually cleaning out his ears. “I thought you said –”

“Consummation.”

“We have to watch aliens have sex?” Lance sounds utterly mortified.

Allura looks like someone just died.

“No, not exactly. You see… everyone participates.”

“What?” Keith’s voice is hoarse. Lance has actually stopped breathing.

“Presumably the King will, um.” Keith has never seen Allura look so embarrassed. “Pair you up. With his subjects. To participate.”

“Oh _no, no, no,”_ Lance moans.

“I know it is not ideal, but surely there is some way to get out of it? You could claim incompatibility with the inhabitants of this planet.”

“Yeah, that would be a great idea, Lance, why don’t you tell them why we can’t do that?”

Lance runs his hands over his face and looks at the ground. “I told the King that Keith and I were, um, mates.”

Pidge and Allura stay frozen for so long that Keith almost checks the connection to see if it had frozen.

“ _Why?”_ It is finally Allura who speaks.

“Because he wanted me and Keith to hook up with his subjects! I was thinking on my feet!”

“So the King thinks that you and Keith are dating?”

“In not so many words, yes.”

“Oh, Lance,” Allura says.

“I thought it was a good idea! It’s Keith’s fault that we have to go to this – this – orgy!”

Keith looks at Allura. “Do we _really_ need this army?”

“The Tezzuk will be valuable allies.”

“Fuck,” Keith swears. “The next time either of you try to send me anywhere with Lance, you can go to hell.”

“You weren’t coming up with anything!”

Keith bangs his head against the wall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tumblr @sirixsblacks


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Is it just me or did you expect saving the galaxy to be a little more glamorous?”

In the end, they realize they have no other options. They cannot back out of the ceremony, not now that they have already agreed. It would be too much of a slight.

So their only option is to try and appease the King, get on his good side enough that when the time comes, they can opt out of the ceremony without it being deemed an insult.

But that means that they have to play along with this horrifying charade.

Lance, to Keith’s horror, is absurdly good at this. It might just be because Lance is better at dealing with people than Keith is, but Keith finds it very disorienting to see Lance’s ridiculous flirting – something Keith had long since gotten used to – turned onto him. Keith had always thought that Lance’s flirting was ridiculous – it turns out that it’s even more so when it’s aimed at him.

He guesses he should be grateful that Lance is good at this, since Keith definitely isn’t. Keith is good at a lot of things, but pretending to be mated with _Lance,_ of all people, was not one of them.

This is their first full day on this planet, and Keith was ready to get the fuck off of it. Right now they are sitting on a plush lounge type of couch, while a few members of the King’s court is asking them questions about humanity and life on Earth. Lance is answering their questions with ease, and it would be a totally normal situation, except for the fact that Lance’s feet are in Keith’s lap.

The Tezzuk seem fascinated with human life. They wanted to know more about the mundane aspects of life on earth then they wanted to hear about the galaxy’s greatest super weapon that had recently resurfaced.

Keith doesn’t listen to Lance’s ramblings. He is too busy staring at the feet in his lap. Lance had done it without even seeming to notice. He had just been talking to the Tezzuk before he sat back and lifted his feet into Keith’s lap. He hadn’t even looked at Keith when he did it.

He has no idea what to do with his hands. He tries to think about what he would do in this situation if he were in an actual relationship, but that doesn’t actually help, because he can’t really imagine ever being in this situation with anyone other than Lance.

Wait, no, he didn’t mean it that way. It’s just that nobody other than Lance would ever get him into a situation like this. Besides, Keith didn’t really… _do_ relationships. Astonishingly, people weren’t eager to date the weird orphan from the desert, not that Keith was really eager to date anyone, either. He had bigger things to do.

Tentatively, he rests his hands on Lance’s ankle, above his pants. Lance falters slightly but picks up almost immediately. Now that Keith has gone through with this he isn’t really sure what to do now. Is this what you were supposed to do in a relationship? He has a strange feeling that he should like, _stroke_ Lance’s skin, but he isn’t sure where the fuck that comes from, and he sure as hell isn’t going to listen to it.

“So tell me,” one of the Tezzuk’s asks. “How does the human mating ritual work?”

Keith starts coughing, and Lance jerks so suddenly that he almost kicks Keith. “What?”

“I don’t mean _literally,”_ the Tezzuk says, as if a race who had asked two strangers to join their orgy found it distasteful to ask for specifics. “What I mean is, who produces the offspring?”

Lance gives Keith a panicked look, and he figures he should try and contribute somewhat to this relationship.

“Uh, well, the women are the ones who give birth.”

“And what decides who the woman will be?”

“Women are – our genders don’t really change. Women are always women.” Sure, it was a little more complicated than that, but Keith didn’t really want to get into that right now.

“Wait, you guys change genders?” Lance asks. Not for the first time Keith wonders how Lance could possibly get by, being so unobservant.

“We do not use that term, young human, but when we mate, one of us will take on the role of the birth giver.”

“How is that decided?” Keith asks.

“It is based on the hormone levels of you and your partner.”

“Hang on, does that mean that you can be, for all intents and purposes, the mother one time, and then the next you can be, for all intents and purposes, the father?”

“Yes. Many Tezzuk, depending on their partner, may play different roles.”

“So what do you do about mothers and fathers day?”

Keith pinches Lance’s ankle, who yelps.

“What was that for?”

“You’re an idiot.”

“So then which one of you is the… women?”

Keith and Lance exchange another look.

“Um. Neither of us.”

“So then who gives birth to the offspring?”

“We don’t _have_ offspring,” Keith snaps.

“Then what is the purpose of your mating?”

Lance’s feet shift awkwardly in Keith’s lap once again. “For, uh. You know. Love, and stuff.”

“So you mate just for the fun of it?”

This was the worst conversation Keith had ever had.

“Yeah, basically,” Lance says awkwardly. Then, before they could ask another question, Lance springs to his feet, grabbing Keith’s hand to lift him to his feet. “Sorry, we would love to continue this conversation, but we have, um, business to attend to, if you know what I mean.” Lance gives an awkward little giggle. The Tezzuk winks at them. Keith briefly contemplates dying.

Lance drags him by the hand to their room, and once again Keith yanks his away when they reach it.

“What is fucking wrong with you?”

“What?”

“Couldn’t you have thought of a better way to get us out of that conversation?”

“I don’t see you putting any effort into this!”

“What do you want me to do? Drape myself all over you, pretend to be in love with you?”

“No, but maybe try to pretend that you don’t hate me for a few days?”

Keith blinks at Lance, surprised. “I don’t hate you.”

Lance narrows his eyes, as if expecting a trick.

“I don’t! Jesus, Lance, I’ve spent almost a year of my life with you, do you honestly still think I don’t like you?”

“Well I don’t fucking know! You’re not exactly open with your feelings, Keith.”

Keith looks away. “I don’t hate you, okay?”

“Okay,” Lance says. “I guess I don’t hate you either.”

“You guess?”

Lance smiles. “Some days you’re more annoying than others.”

“You’re annoying all days.”

“Aw Keith! We were having a moment, don’t ruin it.”

Keith sits down on the bed, and Lance takes a seat beside him. Lance had objected to sleeping on the couch the first night, so they both decided to just suck it up and share the bed, granted with a wall of pillows between them.

“Is it just me or did you expect saving the galaxy to be a little more glamorous?”

Keith snorts. “I definitely imagined more epic battles and less of whatever the fuck this is.”

“Hey, come on. If you had to fake date anyone, I’m definitely the best option.”

“In what universe?”

“Ouch. You think this would be any less painful with someone else? Think about it. It wouldn’t work with Allura or Pidge –”

“Why not?”

Lance gives him a funny look. “You’re gay, aren’t you?”

Keith stares at him. He has forgotten how to form words.

“What? Was I not supposed to know?” When Keith still remains silent, Lance says, “Keith, buddy, you’re freaking me out here, say something.”

“How did you – why do you…” He debates denying it, decides there’s no point. “You didn’t know Pidge was a girl and yet you figured this out?”

“God no, Hunk told me.”

“Oh my God, so Hunk knows.”

“Dude, what’s the issue? No one gives a shit. I mean, I like guys, too!”

Keith raises his eyebrows. “You do?”

“I like everyone, Keith, maybe you’ve noticed. Fuck, there are alien civilizations out there and you think I’m going to limit myself to human women?”

“I guess the more options you have the higher chance there is of you finally getting a date.”

Lance elbows him. “Who needs a date when you have a mate?”

Keith rolls his eyes. “You’re the worst.”

“So as I was saying, Pidge or Allura wouldn’t work.”

“Just because I’m… it doesn’t mean I couldn’t pretend!”

“Keith. Man. You’re not exactly Meryl Streep over here.”

“Who?”

Lance looks genuinely offended. “Oh my God, dude, did you not pay attention in history class? Jesus.”

“I still think I could –”

“Fine, then how about because Allura is a beautiful space princess and Pidge is fifteen?”

“Yeah, okay, I guess.”

“Fake dating Shiro would be like fake dating your father,” Lance continues, with Keith can’t help but agree with. “And I’m a better option than Hunk.”

“Not true, I think Hunk and I would be great fake mates.”

Lance makes an offended noise. “Not better than me! We have _history.”_

“You glaring at me in school and obsessing over my hair does not count as history.”

“I wasn’t obsessing! And it’s not my fault you have stupid hair.” He flicks Keith’s bangs.

“There’s nothing wrong with my hair.”

Whatever Lance was going to say to this is cut off by a knock on the door. They exchange worried looks before Keith gets up to open it.

The Tezzuk at the door bows. “The King requests your presence,” they say. Keith looks back at Lance, who just shrugs.

“All right,” he says, and as they follow the alien, Lance slips his hand into Keith’s.

* * *

The King takes them to the palace gardens.

“Tell me: are the plants on earth so beautiful?”

Both Keith and Lance stare, until eventually they both manage to shake their heads.

“This is what finally won me to your side, young humans. The knowledge that if the Galra invaded, they would destroy these gardens.”

Keith thinks that’s a pretty shitty reason to fight a war, but as long as the Tezzuk sided with them, he supposes it doesn’t really matter what the reasons are.

“Do not misunderstand,” the King continues. “I am concerned for my people, far more than for these gardens. But this is what I realized – if I side with you and the Galra win, these gardens will be destroyed. But if we fight for the Galra, these gardens will be destroyed win or lose. The Galra would have no concern for this planet whatsoever."

He stops to smell what looks like a rose, except it is such a vibrant colour that Keith doesn’t even know what to call it. He doesn’t think anything even close to it exists on earth.

“Tell me,” the King says. “How did you meet?”

An easy enough question to answer, at least. “At school.”

“And what was it that attracted you to the other?”

Less easy. Keith doesn’t look at Lance, just stares down at their hands, Lance’s skin dark against his own.

“I guess… I was always jealous of Keith,” Lance says quietly. “He was always what I wanted to be.  Eventually I guess that jealousy just turned into something else.”

Keith resists the urge to pull his hand away. He’s pretty sure his palm is sweating. Gross.

He realizes that Lance is done talking, and the King is waiting for him to say something. What can he say? He thinks about Lance, about all the things he likes about him, about when he stopped being a rival and started being something more. Being a friend.

“Lance is… he makes everything exciting,” is what he settles on. It seems to be enough for the King, who smiles. Lance squeezes his hand, and Keith tries not to die of embarrassment.

“You are brave, to fight the Galra.”

“We don’t have another choice,” Keith says.

“There is always a choice, paladin. Just because it is not a good choice doesn’t mean it’s not a choice.”

* * *

That night Keith lays in bed, listening to Lance snore on the other side of the pillow wall. For some reason he is having a very hard time falling asleep tonight, and although Lance’s snoring is certainly annoying, it hadn’t stopped him before.

He can’t stop thinking about what Lance had said. About jealousy turning into something else.

It’s strange, to think that Lance was jealous of him. It seems so strange to him, because to be honest, Keith is a little jealous of _Lance._ Lance was vibrant and energetic and fun to be around. People liked him. People wanted to be around him. 

Keith was none of those things. He wasn’t vibrant, he sure as hell wasn’t energetic, and he certainly wasn’t fun to be around. People didn’t like Keith. Keith had dropped out of school and went to live in the desert and nobody missed him. And Keith has never wanted to be any of the things that Lance was, but there was just something about him. Something about Lance.

And he can’t stop thinking about something else, either. _I mean, I like guys too!_

Keith had accepted long ago that he was gay, and it wasn’t that he had feared how the other paladins would react, because he had faith that they would still accept him. He was just secretive by nature, and he didn’t think it was necessary to share such intimate details about himself. He wonders how Hunk found out, what tipped him off. He wonders if that means the rest of them know, as well.

He isn’t too focused on that, though. It’s almost a relief, to know that they all already know.

_I mean, I like guys too!_

He shoots a glance over the pillow wall at Lance. He is on his side facing Keith, eyelashes dark against his cheek, lips parted slightly. The first night he had lamented for almost ten straight minutes about the lack of good facial cream on this planet, but Keith still thinks he looks pretty good.

Fuck, no, that’s not – he isn’t –

He needs to get off this planet, because he’s going mad. Utterly insane. Keith has been keeping these thoughts at bay for months, now, and he’s doing a pretty successful job of pretending they don’t exist, and he does not appreciate them choosing now to invade his mind just because, what, they’re lying in bed together? How pathetic was that.

Nothing is different, he tells himself. He has five more days on this planet, five more days to put up with this, and then things will go back to normal. He needs to keep these feelings pushed down or else he’s never going to be able to accomplish anything, least of all this.

He shoots one last look at Lance before turning his back to him and falling asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I don't have a crush on Lance. I don't have a crush on Lance_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so i'm going on vacation leaving on friday so this will be the last chapter posted until I get back! also ftr they're both about nineteen or so in this

“Good morning darling,” Lance says when he wakes up the next morning. Keith glares at him.

“Don’t make this weird.”

“Keith. Babe. It’s already weird.”

Keith couldn’t exactly argue with that. “Don’t make this weirder, then.”

Lance yawns and stretches, before standing up. Keith normally slept shirtless, although he had firmly decided to keep as many clothes on as possible during their stay on this planet.

Lance, apparently, had not had the same idea, and Keith was already tired of trying to convince himself that he had totally normal, logical reasons to stare at Lance’s naked torso in the morning. His hair was also an utter mess in a way that Keith would almost call _endearing,_ although he hates himself for it.

_I don’t have a crush on Lance, I don’t have a crush on Lance,_ he chants to himself.

They quickly face another problem – they had brought only the clothes they came in, because they hadn’t expected to stay on this planet, so the Tezzuk had been nice enough to leave some clothes outside their door so they could have something else to wear while their regular clothing was washed.

The problem is that Keith has no fucking idea how to wear any of it.

“Which is the front?” Lance asks, holding what Keith thinks is a shirt up in front of him, except there are only two holes in it, so he’s not entirely sure where they’re supposed to put their other arm.

“Maybe those are pants.”

Lance raises his eyebrows. “Maybe they’re really short pants,” Keith amends. He tries to remember the clothes he had seen the Tezzuk wearing, except he had been more focused on their yellowness and then on Lance holding his fucking hand and he had no idea what they were supposed to do with all this fabric in front of them.

“Maybe if I –” Lance pulls the pant-shirt over his head, except he puts both arms through the holes, leaving his head stuck. “Oh my God, Keith, help me, I can’t see.”

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Keith mumbles, grabbing the hem of the shirt and trying to lift it over Lance’s head. Lance’s flailing arm connects with Keith’s nose, and he swears again before grabbing a hold of both of Lance’s arms.

“Keep still or I’m leaving you in there.”

Lance obeys, but as Keith starts tugging it back over his head he starts laughing.

“What now?”

“This is so romantic.”

Keith lets go. “Fine, stay in there.”

“Keith! That’s not fair help me – ow!” Lance walks forward until he collides with the wall. “What the hell is this material made of, I can’t see a _thing._ Keith, help me, please, you’re not being a very supportive mate.”

“I’m going to take a shower.”

“Don’t leave me here! _Keith.”_

Keith can’t help but smile as he takes pity on Lance and reaches out to him again. His knuckles skim the skin of Lance’s stomach as he lifts the shirt. “Stay fucking still this time.”

He can practically hear Lance pout as he finally frees him from the shirt. Lance’s hair is sticking up at the back of his head. Keith has a very strong desire to flatten it down.

“Thank you,” Lance says breathlessly. Keith throws the alien clothing in Lance’s face and laughs when he stumbles back.

“I’m taking a shower. Please don’t get stuck again until I get out.”

“You don’t want me to get dressed until you’re out of the shower? Sexy.”

Keith turns away quickly so Lance can’t see him blush and then goes to take a very long, relatively cold shower.

_I don’t have a crush on Lance. I don’t have a crush on Lance._

* * *

When Keith gets out the shower he realizes his mistake. He can’t put on his dirty night clothes after showering, but there’s nothing else for him to wear other than the weird alien clothing, that is _outside with Lance._

Keith steels himself, reprimands himself for acting like an idiotic teenager (that he _was_ an idiotic teenager didn’t matter much to him) and then wraps the towel securely around his waist and heads back into the bedroom.

Lance is lounging on the bed, still in his boxers, a pile of clothing in front of him. “I think I figured it out,” he says. “These ones –” he looks up as he’s talking and then trails off.

“What ones?” Keith asks impatiently. Lance clears his throat and averts his eyes.

“Uh, these ones here, with the – these, uh, holes, here, I think they _connect_ with this one, d’you see this, um –” he coughs – “latch looking thing? See, it connects here.”

“That is so unnecessarily complicated.”

Lance grins up at him, normal Lance back. Keith finds himself absurdly relieved. Lance throws the clothes at him.

“Here, I’m going to shower now.” He grabs a handful of clothes and disappears into the bathroom. Keith watches the door close with a strange feeling in his chest.

This is the absolutely worst thing that has ever happened to him.

* * *

The King smiles when he sees them. “Tezzuk clothes suit you well,” he says.

“Thank you for giving them to us,” Lance says. “We appreciate your generosity.”

Keith knows that he shouldn’t be surprised. He had long ago stopped underestimating Lance, but for some reason it was harder for him to accept that Lance was good at diplomatic relations than it was to accept that Lance was a skilled pilot who was good in battle. He probably shouldn’t be surprised, he thinks, as Lance babbles on about something or other, because Lance was a people person, and he adjusted quickly. Lance hadn’t believed in aliens and then when faced with their undeniable existence he had started to flirt. He guesses it’s just strange to hear Lance speak so calmly and maturely when a few days ago he had put a space equivalent of a whoopee cushion in Hunk’s bed.

He should be thankful, if anything. Despite the situation they found themselves in, it _had_ been Lance’s quick thinking that had saved both their asses. If Keith had have come to this planet alone, he would probably be engaged to a weird yellow alien right now.

While they’re talking, Lance shifts on his feet so he is leaning ever so slightly against Keith. His side is warm against Keith’s. Keith stares at his feet. He isn’t sure if he’ll be able to stomach another five days on this planet.

_I don’t have a crush on Lance._

“I realized you hadn’t yet taken in the wonder that is our planet. Xlegna will be more than happy to take you on a tour,” he says, pointing at a scrawny looking alien in the corner, who bows at them both. “Please enjoy yourselves.”

They both thank the King and then follow Xlegna out of the palace.

“I didn’t know there were going to be guided tours,” Lance whispers in Keith’s ear, uncomfortably close to avoid being overheard. “I wonder if there’s an itinerary.”

“I think he’s trying to make us regret our decision to not mate with his subjects,” Keith mutters back.

Lance raises his eyebrows at Xlegna. “It’s not working.”

Keith elbows him, even though he can’t help but smile. “Don’t be rude. I thought you liked yellow aliens.”

Lance groans. “Are you ever going to let me forget that.”

“If I had left you tied up we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

“Yeah, and you would have died like five times.”

“You can only die once.”

“Not true, paladins,” Xlegna says. “There are many species in the galaxy who have two lives or more. They may die many times before they reach their final death.”

Lance and Keith shoot each other a look. Keith had forgotten how large the Tezzuk’s ears were.

“So like cats,” Lance says. Keith rolls his eyes.

“What is a cat?”

“Cats don’t actually have nine lives.”

“Sure they do, Mr. Whiskers once jumped off my roof and I’m pretty sure he stopped breathing for a few minutes.”

“You named your cat Mr. Whiskers?”

“My sister named him, okay! Cats are like… small animals,” he says to Xlegna. “They walk on four legs and they’re fuzzy. Humans keep them as pets.”

“And they have nine lives?”

“No –”

“Tell that to Mr. Whiskers the day he had a run in with a wolf.”

“Now you’re just making shit up.”

“I am not!”

“There’s no way your cat fought a wolf and lived.”

“You’re right, he _died,_ but he had nine lives so it didn’t matter!”

Xlegna laughs at the two of them. “It is easy to see why the two of you have mated.”

Keith stiffens. Lance gives a nervous laugh. “So, uh, what’s the plan for this tour, huh?” He says, not so subtly changing the subject.

“The King wanted me to take you to our beach today.”

“No way. Aliens have beaches?”

Xlegna smiles. Their teeth are pointed. Keith had never noticed that before. “Our race has been around for millions of years, human. The better question should be, _humans_ have beaches?”

* * *

Beach wasn’t exactly the right word.

Everything on the planet was the wrong colour (or, as Xlegna would say, everything on _Earth_ was the wrong colour). The water was a brilliant shade of green, not too far off from the blue of Earth’s bodies of water, but the sand was black as the night sky. Lance dug his toes in and yelped.

“It’s hot!”

“Of course it is,” Keith says. “It’s black and it’s been sitting out in the sun.”

“Is the water safe to go in?” Lance asks. Xlegna nods.

“It will not harm you, human.”

Lance whoops excitedly and strips off his shirt. Keith briefly wonders if God exists and if so, why he hates Keith so much.

“C’mon, Keith.”

“Absolutely not.”

Lance grabs Keith by the wrist and forcibly drags him towards the water. Keith digs his heels in the sand but Lance refuses to give up. Eventually Keith snarls out _fine_ and takes his own shirt off, following in Lance’s footsteps when Lance strips down to his boxers.

Lance laughs as they splash into the water. It is beautifully warm as it laps against them, and Keith is feeling almost serene until Lance splashes him.

“That’s mature,” he says, but Lance just grins and splashes him again. Keith knows what he wants, but he’s determined not to give in.

Lance splashes him one more time, and Keith splashes back in retaliation. Lance lets out a _whoop_ as he and Keith splash water back and forth at each other. Keith can’t help but laugh, even though when he opens his mouth to do so he gets a face full of water and starts coughing like crazy. Lance stops and studies him, slightly worried, but Keith catches his breath, smiles, and sends one last wave at Lance.

“All right, all right, I yield,” Lance says. Keith hadn’t expected him to yield so easily – it was Lance, Lance always wanted to beat Keith in everything – but as Keith laughs he feels Lance’s gaze stay on him, and he trails off self-consciously. 

“What?”

Lance blinks, as if, even though he had been looking right at Keith, he hadn’t been listening.

“You’re so pale. You might get sunburned.”

Keith shrugs, uncomfortable with Lance’s eyes on him. “Maybe you can’t get sunburned on this planet.”

Lance grins. “Famous last words,” he says.

And fuck, Keith hates it when Lance is right.

* * *

“Here,” Lance says, coming into the room. “I think this is basically the Tezzuk equivalent of aloe vera.”

He throws Keith a bottle filled with a gooey clear liquid. When he spreads it on his arms, he audibly sighs in relief. He spreads the liquid on his shoulders and his neck, but then he very quickly realizes a problem.

Lance is poking around the bookshelf in their room when Keith clears his throat.

“Hey, Lance?”

Lance looks up.

“Do you remember when I told you not to make this weird?”

Lance nods.

“I’m about to make this weird.”

“Okay?”

Keith holds out the bottle of space aloe vera. “Can you spread some of this on my back please?”

Lance looks between Keith and the bottle and then bursts out laughing. “Oh, man. Oh man. This is so horribly cliché.”

Keith groans. “Just… please.”

Lance grabs the bottle, shaking his head. Keith sighs and turns around.

The goo is cold and he lets out a hiss as it connects with his burn. Lance’s hands fly off of him as the noise but Keith just shakes his head, “I’m fine,” and Lance resumes, hesitantly rubbing the ointment in. It is without a doubt the most uncomfortable situation Keith has ever been in, and judging from the half-hearted jokes Lance keeps making, he thinks Lance might feel the same.

“I bet Hunk wouldn’t rub space aloe vera on your back,” Lance suddenly says. Keith snorts.

“Hunk definitely would.”

“I can’t believe you would rather fake date Hunk than me.”

“I bet Hunk wouldn’t have let me get sunburned.”

Lance makes an offended noise. “As if I have control over the sun!” But he is still rubbing ointment into Keith’s back. He thinks he should probably tell him that it’s fine, he could stop, now, but he also has a very strange desire to lean back into Lance.

_I don’t have a crush on Lance,_ he thinks again, but it’s half-hearted, because not even he can deny this anymore.

God, his life was a mess. He was on a strange planet pretending to date the guy he has a crush on while pretending he doesn’t actually have a crush on him. And now here he was, sunburnt and sore, and Lance was rubbing fucking ointment on his back and God he wanted to fling himself into space.

“Hey, speaking of Hunk,” he says slowly. “How did he find out about – you know. Me.”

“Dunno. It’s Hunk. He notices things. So many of us are caught up in our own shit but Hunk pays attention to the team.”

“And why did he tell you? Did he tell anyone else?” It doesn’t seem like Hunk, to spill his secret.

Lance’s hands suddenly still. “He just – uh.” He suddenly moves away off the bed and wipes his hands on the comforter. “You’re all good, I think,” he says nervously. Keith doesn’t know why he was suddenly acting like this, nervous and fidgety, because Lance didn’t _get_ nervous and fidgety. Lance was stupidly confident in everything he did, even when he had no reason to be.

Lance coughs. “I’m going to go see Xlegna, I have some questions about things,” he says, obnoxiously vague, before all but running out the door.

Keith stares at the door as it swings shut behind Lance. He had no idea what that was about. It was rare to see Lance so frazzled, and Keith had no idea what had frazzled him.

Unless – he had left after Keith started talking about his sexuality. That wouldn’t make sense, though, for Lance to get spooked from that, since Lance himself had admitted to having feelings for men, too. So why would he be weirded out by Keith being gay? Plus it hadn’t even been _Keith_ who had come out to Lance, Lance had effectively came out for him, so why would he be so jumpy when talking about it?

Unless… maybe he knew Keith had feelings for _him._

Except _how_ would he know that? Fuck, Keith hadn’t even known that until a little while ago, and he only just _admitted_ it to himself all of thirty seconds ago, and Lance wasn’t exactly the most observant of them.

Keith hated not knowing. He hated this feeling of uncertainty in his chest. He hated that it was _Lance_ who put it there.

He hated that he was acting like a lovesick fool when he had the _literal_ galaxy to save.

He decides to go to bed early.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Were you born with that mullet or was that a conscious decision?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am back from vacation!!!!!! i had so much fun hello everyone

Lance comes back later that night and crawls into bed. He was probably trying to be quiet, but Keith was a light sleeper, so he stirs as Lance gets into bed.

“What time’s it?” He mutters.

“I don’t know. Like X Delta Apple or something. They tell time weird here.”

Keith snorts and rolls over, burying his face in his pillow. “They don’t use apples.”

“How do you know?” Lance is lying on his back but his face is turned towards the pillow wall.

“Apples are indigenous to Earth.”

“And you know that as an expert apple scientist?” Lance asks, humour in his voice.

Keith yawns. “Why are you so late?”

“Xlegna and I were having a mini party. They gave me some weird Tezzuk drink that’s kind of like alcohol except not. They’re a cool dude. I think I could have handled mating with them.”

Keith makes an amused noise. “We can always go back and accept the King’s offer if you like them so much.” He opens his eyes and sees Lance grinning at him. Whatever had gotten into him earlier, it seems to be gone; he is back to his old self, treating Keith normally. Keith is strangely relieved.

“Why would I do that when I have a perfectly good mate right here? Fuck, man, I rubbed _ointment_ on you.”

“You don’t need to remind me,” he says. “It hurts to exist right now.”

“Baby.”

“You try getting sunburned and get back to me. And I got _alien_ sunburned. That’s even worse.”

Lance laughs. It is loud in the quiet of the bedroom. Keith used to get annoyed at the noise, at how loud it was, like Lance needed to let the whole universe knew he was laughing, but now the sound comforts him, knowing that whatever weird thing had sprung up between them earlier had left.

“Hey, Keith?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you think our kids would look like.”

“Go to sleep, Lance.”

“No, seriously!” Lance sits up and turns towards the pillow wall, crossing his legs. “Like, biological issues aside, do you think they’d be cute? Do you think they’d have your hair? Were you born with that mullet or was that a conscious decision?”

Keith smiles and pretends not to. “Do you think they’d have your annoying ability to talk nonstop?”

“Or your ability to suck the fun out of everything?”

“Or your horrible singing?”

“How do you know I sing horribly?”

“I hear you in the shower, moron.”

Lance laughs. Eventually Keith says, staring at a spot on the pillow so he didn’t have to look at Lance, “They’d be a good pilot, at least.”

“From your side or mine?”

“Both of us, Lance. You’re a good pilot.”

“Hang on, can you repeat that? I don’t think I heard you correctly.”

Keith takes a pillow from the pillow wall and slams it in Lance’s face. “Don’t make me regret that.”

“Man, you do _not_ want to get into a pillow fight with me. I am the world’s best pillow fighter.”

“Somehow I doubt it.”

“Okay, fine, but I once beat Hunk in a pillow fight and Hunk is basically a giant pillow himself so there.”

“I bet Hunk let you win.”

A pillow slams in his face. Keith jolts upright and takes another pillow, hitting Lance repeatedly with it.  “We are not doing this, we are not having a pillow fight, we are defenders of the _galaxy_ not teenage girls at a sleepover.”

“Says the one who won’t stop hitting me! Fucking –” Lance ducks beneath Keith’s swinging arm and topples the pillow wall onto him. “There! Hah.”

Keith emerges from a stack of pillow and glares up at Lance. With the collapse of the pillow wall, it is suddenly much harder to pretend that they aren’t sharing a bed.

“That was cheating.”

“That was _winning.”_

 _“_ That sounds like something a cheater would say.”

Lance grins and falls backwards, grabbing one of the pillows on top of Keith and putting it behind his head.

“You ruined the pillow wall.”

Lance shrugs. “You started it.”

That was true, actually, and Lance seems fine, sleeping with nothing between them, so Keith sighs and readjusts himself, lying on his side facing away from Lance. Things have calmed down and he is almost asleep when he hears Lance whisper, barely audible, “You’re a good pilot, too.”

“Thanks,” he says, mouth dry. He listens to Lance’s breathing even out before he finally falls asleep as well.

* * *

At the rate they were going in terms of horrible clichés, Keith half expects them to wake up cuddling, but when he wakes up the next morning he is still on his side, and Lance is on his back. One of his feet is definitely encroaching on Keith’s side of the bed, but they aren’t touching. Keith isn’t sure how to feel about this.

“You’re still as red as a tomato,” Lance says as Keith stretches and winces. “We should probably not go outside today.”

Keith can’t help but agree. He takes a cold shower again, too afraid to put up with hot water, and then slathers on more cream before getting dressed. Their regular clothes had been washed so he didn’t have to struggle into Tezzuk clothing, and although he still can’t reach his back, he decides to just suck it up and live without the aloe vera there.

When he gets out Lance is talking to Allura. When he enters the picture she trails off.

“Goodness, you are red.”

Keith scowls.

“The princess was just asking how we were doing,” Lance says. “I was telling her that we think the King is trying to make us jealous.”

“Let him,” is all Allura says. “Let him think we need him.”

“We _do_ need him.”

“So it shouldn’t be that hard,” Shiro says, appearing out of nowhere. “How are the two lovebirds?”

Keith groans. “Don’t start, Shiro, please.”

Shiro laughs.

“The next time we need to recruit someone, you and Allura can go,” Lance says.

“Shouldn’t be too hard to pretend to date if you already are,” Keith says smugly. Shiro pales, looks at Allura, looks back at Keith, then says, “Coming, Pidge!” And running off. Keith smirks triumphantly as Allura turns red.

“Keep us updated,” she says, and before Lance can even open his mouth to say anything, she has disconnected.

“What was that about?” He asks, voice high. Keith shrugs.

“Shiro and Allura are a thing. Kind of.”

“How are you _kind of_ a thing?”

“I mean they’re a thing but neither of them want to admit it.”

Lance looks between Keith and the deactivated calling pod. “Why not?”

Keith shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe they didn’t want you to know.”

“Why the fuck not?”

Honestly, sometimes it was exhausting, dealing with Lance. “Maybe because you’ve been putting the moves on Allura since we got here?”

Lance stares at him. “Okay, but not _seriously.”_

“And how are they supposed to know that?”

“I never flirt with people who would ever give me a chance! That’s why I’m so good at it! It’s easy if you go in expecting nothing!”

Keith stares at him. “Lance, you literally flirt with _everybody.”_

“Yeah,” Lance says, as if that didn’t disprove his point.

“But… okay, what about that girl who hijacked your lion?”

“Nyma? She wasn’t interested, she just wanted to turn us over to the Galra!”

Keith studies Lance. “So you aren’t interested in Allura?”

“I try not to get too invested in people who would never be interested in me.”

“How do you know she wouldn’t be interested?”

Lance raises his eyebrows. “Beautiful space princess,” he says, raising one hand, palm up. “Dork from Earth,” he says, raising the other.

Keith wants to say something, something about how Lance shouldn’t think so little of himself, that he shouldn’t assume no one would be interested in him, that he didn’t have to hide his insecurity behind false bravado, that they were a team, and they were friends, now. But he doesn’t know how to say that without giving too much away, doesn’t know how to tell Lance _you’re worth it_ without also saying _you’re worth it to me._

So he doesn’t say anything.

* * *

Honestly, now that they’re here, and things have kind of calmed down, being on this planet has gotten kind of _boring._ The third and fourth days follow the same kind of schedule. They wake up, they go to breakfast with the King, Lance holds his hand and eats food off his plate, then one of the members of the King’s court – usually Xlegna – shows them some beautiful part of the planet to try and show them just how much they were missing out, refusing to take the King up on his offer. Him and Lance bicker to try and break up the monotony but neither of them are really into it, knowing they’re only doing it to try and add some excitement to the situation. There is nothing really for them to argue about.

It’s starting to get easier, dealing with this whole thing. He doesn’t jerk away when Lance holds his hand, anymore, doesn’t get quite as tense when Lance casually leans into him. Keith has even started to instigate things with Lance, now, grabbing his hand instead of waiting for Lance to take his, letting their knees rest together when they’re sitting down. At first Lance seems surprised, but soon enough he learns to go with it, swinging their arms as they walked, which Keith always tried to be annoyed at, but honestly he didn’t mind it.

He was learning about himself, he realized. Learning that things that he thought he would have hated he doesn’t actually mind that much, when they’re with someone he likes. And he knows that this is an act, and that it will end very soon, and that Lance is doing it out of survival, but he still starts leaning what he likes and doesn’t like. He doesn’t really like holding hands, mostly because he likes having both hands available in case there’s an attack, but he likes when Lance rests his feet in his lap or tucks them under Keith’s thigh when they’re sitting down. He doesn’t like the obvious things Lance does to make it look like they’re dating, like the hand holding or calling him obnoxious pet names in public, but he likes the subtle things, the way Lance walks close to him or grabs food off his plate or the secret smiles he sends him, things that, even though he knows are solely for the sake of the aliens, seem to exist only between them.

They don’t put the pillow wall back up. There is no conscious decision not to, just the next night when they go to bed they each climb into their respective sides and don’t mention it again.

On the fifth night Keith wakes up alone. It is dark outside still, and Keith isn’t sure how Lance managed to get out of bed without waking him. Keith always slept lightly, ready for some sort of danger.

Unless he was just starting to feel safe with Lance.

He isn’t sure where, exactly, Lance could have gone at what was probably the Tezzuk equivalent of three in the morning, until he glances outside and sees that it’s raining.

He debates leaving him alone, but he is already up and moving.

Lance is sitting on one of the benches in the middle of the palace gardens. Keith sticks a tentative hand out to test out the rain, first. Obviously it’s fine, since Lance is sitting there unharmed, so clearly it isn’t _acid_ or anything, but Keith still likes to be sure.

When all he feels is the coolness of rain on his palm he heads out to join Lance.

Lance looks up when Keith approaches and smiles at him warmly. “Your hair looks even funnier plastered to your forehead.”

“I’m starting to get the distinct impression that you’re jealous of my hair and that’s why you won’t stop talking about it.” Lance doesn’t answer this. “What are you doing out here?” Keith asks.

“I missed rain,” Lance says, staring up at the sky. “This is the first planet we’ve been on that really rains the way it did on Earth.”

“This is the only planet we’ve been on for this long.”

“Good point,” he says.

Keith shifts uncomfortably. He is soaked to the bone. “You shouldn’t stay out here for long.”

“Why not?”

“You don’t know what’s in this rain. It could be harmful.”

Lance scoffs. “Not everything is harmful. Besides, I’m sure Xlegna would have told me.”

“You and your new best friend?”

“If I didn’t know any better, Keith, I’d say maybe you were jealous.”

He is. And he doesn’t know if it’s good or bad that he is living a life this grand and extraordinary but he still has such mundane and normal and _human_ problems like having a crush on a stupid idiotic boy and being jealous at the strange genderless alien he was hanging out with. And it doesn’t matter, because him and Lance _aren’t actually dating_ and he is _so stupid_ and he has the literal galaxy to save and it shouldn’t matter, doesn’t matter, can’t matter that Lance was up late drinking with his alien friend. It’s good that Lance can make friends. It’s a skill Keith never learned.

“If you get hit by weird alien lightning the King will probably make me mate with one of his subjects to try and speed up the grieving process.”

Lance rests his arm on the back of the bench and his fingers graze Keith’s shoulder. “I knew you only wanted me for my body.”

“You’re making this weird again.”

“We’re stuck on a weird planet with a bunch of unknown aliens who think that we’re dating and in two days we have to have sex in a room with a bunch of them. It’s pretty fucking weird, dude.”

Keith feels his face burning. “We don’t – we aren’t going to have _sex.”_

“Then what’s the plan?”

“I don’t know. You’re the plan guy.”

“Since when am I the plan guy?”

“You always come up with plans, Lance. That’s what you do. You’re good under pressure and you figure out a way to get us out of shit.”

“You do this really funny thing when every time you compliment me you somehow still manage to sound mad at me.”

Keith laughs. “I’m not mad at you. If you get struck by alien lightning and die and I have to sleep with some alien in a room filled with other aliens, then I might be mad at you.”

“I think if I get struck by lightning right now, you’d die too.”

“So we’d die together.”

“How romantic.”

Keith rolls his eyes. There is something off about Lance tonight, something sharper to his words, and he doesn’t know what to make of it. He knows it’s got to have something to do with the rain, and missing Earth. It had been so long since they had been home, and it had a bigger effect on Lance than it had on anyone. Keith wonders if he should have left him out here to be homesick by himself.

Lance lets his knee rest gently against Keith’s.

“Thank you for coming to look for me,” he says quietly, as if he didn’t really want Keith to hear.

“You don’t have to hide how you feel from anyone, you know. No one – everyone else gets homesick.”

“Everyone else, but not you?”

Keith looks ahead of him. The rain is falling hard and he can hardly make out anything more than three feet in front of him. “I don’t have a home to be sick for,” he mumbles, hoping the rain will carry the sound away.

Maybe Lance doesn’t hear, or maybe he understands that Keith doesn’t really want to talk about it, because he doesn’t acknowledge it, just says, “No one else gets homesick like me.”

“So?”

“So I – it’s been this long and it still feels like this and it shouldn’t. I’m letting it – it’s a weakness, and I let it take over me.”

“It’s not a weakness.”

“Sure it is.”

“Missing home is not a weakness.” Not having a home, not _trying_ to have a home, refusing to get close to anyone and secluding yourself away – that was a weakness. Lance’s capacity to love was not. “You had a big family, Lance. Everyone understands.”

He gazes at Keith, and it is strange and disconcerting to see him so serious, so somber, and for the very first time, Keith admits to himself how much he wants to kiss him.

Kissing in the rain. The cliché to end all clichés. Lance would never stop teasing him.

Except he wouldn’t tease, because he would be too busy turning Keith down.

Lance reaches out and brushes Keith’s hair back. “How can you possibly see with this hanging in your eyes,” he says, and he smiles and he moves the bangs away from Keith’s face.

“If I didn’t know any better, Lance, I’d say maybe you were jealous.”

“Please,” he says. “As if I have anything to be jealous of.”

He thinks he’s starting to understand Lance. He’s starting to understand that he isn’t as self-assured as he seems. He thinks of what he said earlier, about no one being interested in him, versus this cocky version of him now, and he wants to tell Lance that he can stop pretending in front of him, but Keith is pretending, too. He is snarky and acts annoyed, acts like Lance is still nothing more than an annoying classmate, and if he can’t be honest with Lance, he can’t expect Lance to be honest with him.

And there’s no way in hell he’s going to be honest with Lance. Not about this.

“We should go back in,” is what he finally says. Lance sighs before eventually nodding.

“Yeah, probably.” He stands up, stretches, sticks his hand out. Keith grabs it to help himself up, and Lance doesn’t stop holding it back to their room.

 _Habit,_ is what he tells himself. _The Tezzuk might still be watching._

None of this meant anything.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I had a very strictly planned out beauty regiment that this planet has completely ruined.”

When they get back to the room Keith grabs two towels out of their bathroom and throws one at Lance, using the other to dry himself off, running it over his head. He knows his hair probably looks ridiculous, but Lance, for once, doesn’t say anything. Lance yawns as he towels off his hair, and when he’s finished it’s sticking up all over his head. Before Keith can figure out what the fuck he’s thinking, he reaches out and sticks it down.

He pulls his hand back as if it had been burned, but Lance doesn’t seem to mind. He smiles lazily at Keith, who turns away before he does anything else stupid. He excuses himself into the bathroom to change into warm clothes, and when he comes back out Lance is wearing new clothes, as well, and he has the entire blanket wrapped around him.

Keith crosses his arms and leans against the wall. “That’s not going to work.”

In response, Lance extends one of his arms, as if inviting Keith to join him. Keith walks over to the bed and yanks some of it away from Lance. “Don’t be a blanket hog.”

“Don’t be a blanket hog,” Lance says mockingly. Keith laughs and pretends he doesn’t.

“Oh, that’s mature.”

“Oh, that’s mature.”

Keith groans and collapses on the bed beside Lance, tugging uselessly at the blankets Lance has cocooned himself in. “Lance, oh my _God.”_

Lance laughs, but it is quiet. Usually Lance laughs and the universe knows; this laugh seems to be reserved only for Keith. Keith grabs so hard at the blanket that Lance physically spins, releasing some of it, and Keith grabs it gratefully.

“For someone who has so many siblings you’d think you would be better at sharing.”

“Please. When you have five other siblings it’s fend for yourself. There’s no sharing. Only survival.”

Keith thinks about this, wonders about how different Lance’s life was compared to his. “What is it like?” He asks tentatively. “Having such a big family.”

Lance considers this. “It’s… I don’t know. When I left for the Garrison I was so excited to have something to myself for once. Nothing is only yours when you have so many siblings. I didn’t even have my own room. It was impossible to get attention. But now… God, I miss it. I miss them. Even Marco, who’s the youngest so he’s a little shit. Even my Abuelita, and she scared the shit out of me. She once told me I would never be too far away for her not to know if I was eating shitty food.” He laughs. “I assume she meant on Earth.”

Keith is quiet. He doesn’t know what to say to this. He has nothing to hold it up against. The closest thing he has ever had to a family is everyone else on the castle ship.

“It’s not that great,” he finally says. “Having everything to yourself.”

“Well,” Lance says slowly. “That’s good. Because I have a feeling you’re not going to have everything to yourself anymore. You’re kind of stuck with us. Literally and figuratively, right now.”

 Keith nods.

“Can I ask you a question?” Lance finally says, and Keith nods again. “What did you mean when you told the King that I make everything exciting?”

It takes him a moment to remember what the hell Lance was talking about, but eventually he clues in. That day, when the King asked them what it was that had drawn them to each other. He had said Lance made everything exciting.

“What did you mean when you told him that you were jealous of me?”

“I asked you first.”

Keith sighs. Truthfully he hadn’t really known what he was saying when he said that, just that he knew that it was true. He tries to figure out how best to articulate what he meant.

“You… nothing is ever boring with you. Even back at the Garrison, when I didn’t even know you. I don’t know, Lance. I guess you’re just… fun to be around. Sometimes. Occasionally. When you’re not annoying.”

Lance is uncharacteristically quiet for a few long moments before he says, “You remember me at the Garrison?”

Keith can’t really believe that this is what Lance chose to focus on. “Yeah? I mean, you literally didn’t stop looking at me.”

Lance sputters. “It was _glaring,_ not looking!”

“Is there a difference?”

“One of them involves more anger.”

“And jealousy, apparently.”

Lance kicks him gently. “You were best in the class. Obviously I was jealous of you. I was just a… cargo pilot.”

“Not anymore,” Keith says

“Weirdly this doesn’t feel much more fulfilling.”

Keith laughs, but then he says, “You have nothing to be jealous of. I was a good pilot. That’s all. You had everything else.”

Lance nudges him lightly with his foot. “And now we have to have sex in front of aliens.”

“And now we have to have sex in front of aliens,” Keith repeats. Lance lets out a huff of laughter.

There is something strange between them tonight, something different, as if anything that happens tonight won’t matter tomorrow, like they could tell each other anything right now and it wouldn’t matter. Like they are in some alternate universe where there is nothing between them, no walls or borders or uncomfortable feelings. Just the two of them.

Lance yawns.

“Go to sleep,” Keith says. “Hopefully you didn’t catch pneumonia out there.”

“Oh, so they don’t have apples but they pneumonia?”

Keith smiles and rolls his eyes. “Good night, Lance.”

“Night,” Lance responds.

* * *

This time when they wake up, Lance’s leg is slung over Keith’s, but other than that they are both still on their respective sides. Lance’s hair is a mess, having dried funny after sleeping on it after being out in the rain, and when Keith turns to face him he can’t help but laugh.

“What?” Lance asks, offended.

“Your hair looks fucking ridiculous.”

“If by _ridiculous_ you mean _gorgeous –”_ He reaches up and feels the strands sticking out at the back and makes a face. “Oh, okay, yeah.”

Keith snorts. “I told you.”

“I had a very strictly planned out beauty regiment that this planet has completely ruined.”

Keith has a totally insane thought to tell him that he still looks good, although he shoves that desire deep, deep down inside himself, because he does have _some_ sense of self-preservation, thank you very much.

“I think we should figure out the plan for tomorrow,” Lance says, after brushing down his hair. Keith gives him a very strange look, heart beating erratically. Lance observes this strange behaviour and then laughs. “Not like that, idiot, I meant how we’re going to get out of it. I don’t want to exchange tips on how best to have sex.”

Not that Keith has any tips, but still. “Right. That makes more sense.”

“No shit,” Lance says, sitting up and stretching. He had slept with a shirt on last night. Keith finds himself feeling almost cheated.

“Do you think we should talk to the King today? Say we don’t feel comfortable? Maybe we can ask if we can just watch and not participate.”

Lance gives him a horrified look, and Keith rolls his eyes. “We have to give them something, Lance.”

“We’re giving them Voltron! I think that should be enough, frankly.”

“I will take watching over participating any day of the week, but if you’re so eager to bone an alien then by all means be my guest.”

Lance lets out a frustrated noise. “Whose fucking idea was this?”

_“Yours.”_

Lance gives him a sheepish grin, and much to his annoyance, Keith finds most of his irritation disappears, just from the presence of that grin alone. How pathetic.

“Oh right. It was a great idea, then.”

Keith looks up at the ceiling. “I miss Hunk,” he says. Lance makes an offended noise.

“You’re just trying to make me jealous,” he says. Something hits Keith in the head and when he grabs it he sees it’s Lance’s shirt. He throws it back.

“Is it working?”

Lance seems to consider this. Eventually he just grins again and whips his shirt back at Keith’s head. “I’m showering first this time. You always take all the hot water.”

And with that he disappears into the bathroom. Keith throws the shirt across the room and rolls over, burying his face in his pillow.

He needed to get off this planet, he needed to get away from Lance, he needed to have human interaction with someone other than the guy he liked, he needed to not share a fucking bed with him anymore. He needed to get things sorted again. Lance was a naturally flirty person by nature; he knows this, he is used to it, but to have it turned on him nonstop for so many days in a row is starting to fuck with his head. All he wants to do is get back on the castle ship and go back to the way things normally were, with him and Lance having friendly bickering and nothing else and him happily pretending that he didn’t have any of these complicated feelings.

Saving the galaxy wasn’t supposed to be this _difficult._

* * *

Keith is almost certain Lance took all the hot water on purpose.

He sticks his head out of the door and glares at Lance, who is sitting on the bed throwing some kind of circular candle looking thing up and down.

“You did that on purpose.”

“I can’t help it that I enjoy long, luxurious showers,” he says, the loftiness of his voice not matching the glint of amusement in his eye.

“You are _so_ annoying,” Keith mutters, shutting the door and continuing to get dressed. He can hear Lance laughing through the door.

When he’s finished getting dressed, him and Lance head down to the dining room for breakfast. He has almost gotten used to Tezzuk food – it’s not bad, exactly, but the texture completely throws him off. They are almost done when Xlegna comes to join them. Lance grins at them happily. Keith nods.

“Xlegna! Just the alien we wanted to see,” Lance says. Xlegna smiles. Despite the pointed teeth, it is a nice, warm smile.

“I am glad, paladins. But first the King would like to see you. They wants to explain in more detail what will happen tomorrow during the mating ceremony.”

Lance and Keith exchange a look.

“That’s what we wanted to talk about, anyway,” Lance says. “Lead the way, Xlegna.”

Xlegna does. As always, Lance slips his hand into Keith’s and squeezes his fingers slightly, swinging their arms as they walk. Keith shoots him an annoyed look, but Lance just sticks his tongue out at him.

For some reason he can’t quite figure out, he has a bad feeling about this. He doesn’t entirely know how to explain it, but he has a feeling that this isn’t going to turn out the way they want it to.

When they reach the throne room Xlegna bows to the King and then backs away to hover near the back of the room. Lance and Keith bow, too, and then wait for the King to speak. Keith wants to talk first, wants to explain what they want before the King has a chance to say something that will ruin their – admittedly pretty bad – plan, but, although he’s a little shoddy on etiquette rules for alien monarchs, he’s pretty sure you’re supposed to only speak when spoken to, for the most part.

“Hello, young humans,” they say jovially. Keith is intensely annoyed whenever the King calls them that, for some reason.

Keith has spent most of this trip annoyed, it seems.

“Your highness,” Lance says, with another bow of his head. Lance was that charming, Keith thinks – enough to even charm a King.

“I have brought you here because I believe you are probably interested in what is going to happen tomorrow,” they say. Interesting isn’t exactly the word Keith would use, but both he and Lance nod. “I imagine you’re a little anxious, too, yes? Not to worry. Most Tezzuk are also concerned their first mating ceremony, but once it gets going they find they’re worries tend to turn into something else,” they say with a wink that makes Keith profoundly uncomfortable. He isn’t entirely certain what that means. Clearly there’s some hidden meaning that the King doesn’t want to tell them outright. Apparently they’ll learn it tomorrow.

“Er, yes,” Lance begins. “Your majesty, humans don’t usually… mate with a crowd. It’s usually a very private thing. Keith and I are a little concerned about, um… performing. In front of others.”

Keith bites his lip and digs his fingernails into Lance’s skin. Unbelievably, he almost wants to laugh. Here they were, standing in front of an alien king, and Lance was more or less saying they wouldn’t be able to get it up tomorrow. How is this his life.

“Don’t worry. Like I said – after a few minutes, your worry will fade away.”

“Yeah, okay, but I don’t think –”

“No, paladin. You are not fully comprehending my meaning. During mating the Tezzuk release a certain… scent, a chemical reaction that… it is difficult to explain in terms I think you might understand,” he finally says.

“Like pheromones?” Keith supplies. “It’s like a chemical that animals release. Not that I’m calling you an animal,” he adds hurriedly. “It causes some kind of response. I think it might be used in mating.”

“Yes, exactly,” the King says. “Normally it is not very noticeable, but with so many Tezzuk together, it is at its strongest. It will make it easier for you.”

The King makes eye contact with Keith, and Keith understands, suddenly, that the King is very aware that they wanted to try to get out of it. He isn’t sure if this pheromone thing really exists in the Tezzuk, or if the King is just trying to make it so that there are no real reasons for Lance and Keith to back out.

“I understand your shyness,” they continue. “But this is an important part of our civilization, and I assure you that any concerns you have will vanish tomorrow.”

Keith swallows. He has a desire to let go of Lance’s hand, but Lance is gripping his so tightly Keith doesn’t think he could if he tried.

“So what does the ceremony tomorrow involve?” Keith finally asks, once it is evident Lance is incapable of speaking. They’ll have to figure something else out, but for now Keith wants to get Lance out of here, because he seems to be freaking the fuck out.

The King smiles. It is not a very nice smile – it is a smile of someone who knows they have won.

“Xlegna will fetch you when it is time. You will be brought to the biggest room in this palace, a room we save specifically for this ceremony. And then,” they shrug. “You will mate.”

Great. Keith’s mouth is very dry. Lance still hasn’t said anything.

“We look forward to it, your highness,” he says hoarsely. “Now if we can be excused?”

“Yes, of course,” the King says. Keith decides he really doesn’t like them much.

Keith walks away, pulling Lance with him. He removes his hand from Lance’s and puts it on the small of Lance’s back, pushing him gently out of the room. He steers him all the way back to their room and then pushes him down on the bed, placing both his hands on Lance’s shoulders and looking him in the eye.

“Hey,” he says. “Lance. Calm down.”

“What are we going to do?” He stares at Keith, finally making eye contact, and Keith realizes that what he thought was fear is actually _guilt._ “Keith, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” he says, which, okay, he’s not great at comforting people, but whatever, he’s trying. “We didn’t have another choice, Lance, you did what you thought you had to and you thought quick on your feet and this is better than the other option, honestly, stop looking at me like that.”

“But I –”

“No,” he says. “We’ll figure it out.”

And then, to his surprise, Lance leans forward and pushes his forehead into Keith’s shoulder. “This is fucked,” he says.

Keith is very, very still. “There are worse things that could be happening. Like, you know. Death.”

Lance laughs. “Do you really believe this is better than the other option?”

“I would rather pretend to mate with you then actually mate with some random alien.”

“Aw, Keith. That’s the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me.”

Keith pushes Lance away. “Good, the asshole’s back.”

“Did you miss me?”

Yes, but he sure as fuck isn’t going to admit that. He shakes his head and turns away, to excuse himself into the bathroom, to give himself some time to breathe away from Lance’s hand in his and his breath on Keith’s neck, but then Lance says, “Hey,” and he turns back.

“Thanks,” he says, seriously, and Keith nods.

“We’ve faced worse than this, Lance,” he says. “We’ll work it out.”

And even if he doesn’t know _how,_ he knows they will. Because despite everything him and Lance are good together. They work well together. And they’re a good team.

Keith has utter faith in them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen i am not a scientist i dont fucken know how pheromones work theyre ALIENS OKAY ur not my real mom
> 
> also.......i literally based the king off of tom nook from animal crossing lmao


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I'm game if you are."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao this chapter is so much longer than the others what if i understood consistent chapter lengths can u even imagine

“I’ve been thinking.”

“Concerning.”

Lance kicks him lightly, as half-hearted as Keith’s insult had been.

“The Tezzuk don’t know how humans mate, right? So we don’t necessarily have to – I mean, we could do the Macarena and say that’s how we do it.”

“There has to be some touching. They know we don’t reproduce asexually. Besides, I don’t know how to do the Macarena.”

Lance sits up almost violently, and in the dim moonlight filtering through the window (well… _something_ light), Keith can see his look of utter horror.

“You don’t know how to do the Macarena?”

“Are we really having this conversation right now? Like, really.”

“Do you honestly not know how to do the Macarena?”

“If I say no are you going to try to teach me? Because if so, then yes, I know how to do the Macarena. I love the Macarena. I do it every night when you’re asleep.”

“Oh my God, Keith, get up.”

“Lance, we are supposed to join an alien orgy tomorrow and you want to teach me how to do the Macarena.”

“No, we are supposed to join an alien orgy tomorrow and I’m _going_ to teach you how to do the Macarena.”

“You are the most ridiculous person I’ve ever met in my entire life.”

“Get up, Keith, we’re doing this.”

“You’re not serious.”

Lance is serious, apparently, and he stands up and does some stretching. Keith stares at him incredulously. “No. Absolutely not.”

“C’mon, Keith!”

“You are completely insane. Batshit crazy.”

But Lance just smiles that idiotic grin of his and grabs Keith’s arm, tugging at him. Keith is surprised at how strong he is.

Eventually Keith relents, and he gets up, but he firmly crosses his arms over his chest and stares Lance down.

“This is not happening.”

“Put your right hand out, palm down.”

“No.”

Lance grabs his hand and does what he had told Keith to do. Keith bites back a smile.

“Then the other one.”

“No,” Keith repeats.

And this is how it continues, with Lance issuing instructions, Keith resolutely refusing, and Lance forcing Keith’s limbs to co-operate.

“There!” Lance says with a grin. “Now you’ve done the Macarena.”

“I feel incredibly fulfilled,” he says dryly.

Lance laughs and throws himself back down on the bed. Keith lays down beside him.

“You’re right. They don’t know what it is. We can probably get by with minimal contact,” Keith says after a few moments.

“By minimal contact you mean…”

“Kissing,” he says, grateful for the darkness of the room so that Lance can’t see the redness of his cheeks.

“Well, shit, Keith, if you want to make out with me so badly, you could have just asked.” But Lance’s tone is forced.

“We’ll be fine,” Keith says, in a voice that sounds more confident than he feels.

Lance shifts slightly so that their legs are pressed together, and that’s how they fall asleep.

* * *

They wake up to a knocking on the door. Keith slides out of bed and opens it to reveal a Tezzuk he hadn’t met yet. They bow slightly and then hold out a pile of clothes.

“Um,” Keith says. He takes them reluctantly. “What are these for?”

“The ceremony,” they say, as if this should be obvious. Keith just nods and then shuts the door.

“Why do we need special clothes for something done without clothes on?”

Keith was thinking the same thing. “Maybe they don’t take their clothes off during it.”

“I hope so. I could go my whole life without seeing the King naked.”

Keith holds up the clothes and examines them. “I… I think this is a crop top.”

“Oh, good, I look great in a crop top.”

“How do you _know?”_

“We go to school in the desert, Keith! It gets hot!”

Keith shakes his head. The clothes were a strange silvery colour, shimmering in the light of their room. At the very least these ones were easier to put on. There was only two pieces of fabric this time, and although the shirts are definitely too short, the pants actually fit. Although…

“Um,” Lance says, and Keith turns around to see a flap hanging down between his legs. “What is this?”

“Easy access?”

Lance sputters and Keith can’t help but laugh at him.

“What? It’s a mating ceremony.”

Lance shakes his head. “This is the worst day of my life.”

“I’ll try not to take that personally.”

Lance sighs heavily. “Do you want to go eat breakfast?”

No, he wanted to run away and bury his head in the sand, forget that he was supposed to make out with the guy he was pretty sure he was half in love with.

It was easy, once he admitted that his feelings were more than platonic, to slide deeper down that slope. Lance was such an easy person to love, really. Keith kind of hated him for it.

“Yeah, all right.”

* * *

After breakfast they head back to their room and wait. They sit on the bed in silence; Lance occasionally drums an absentminded beat on the bedspread until Keith shoots him a look and he stops.

“So, what’s the plan, again?” Keith eventually says, once the silence starts to be too much. Lance hums.

“I guess… we make out for a while, and then we… give our best regards to the King and leave?”

“That is the worst plan I’ve ever heard in my life. You’re supposed to be the plan guy.”

“That was your plan!”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not shitty.”

Lance laughs, and then Keith laughs, because everything about this whole situation is just utterly ridiculous. Together they laugh, slightly hysterical, until there is a knock on the door.

They both stop abruptly and exchange a look before standing up almost in unison.

Xlegna is there. They give them what Keith is pretty sure is supposed to be a reassuring smile.

It doesn’t work.

Lance and him don’t speak on the way there. Lance doesn’t even hold his hand. Keith has gotten so used to Lance holding his hand everywhere that it leaves him feeling empty.

At the outside of the room Lance grabs his arm and gestures at Xlegna to go on, that they’ll follow in a minute. Xlegna nods and continues on. In the brief moment that the door is open Keith gets a glance of a room filled with plush sofa’s and chaise’s, with many different Tezzuk everywhere.

He turns back to Lance.

“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” Lance asks.

“We don’t have a choice,” he says.

What he means is, _I’ve wanted this for longer than I care to admit._

“No,” Lance says, to his surprise. “We do. It’s like the King said. There’s always a choice. Just because it’s a shitty choice doesn’t mean it’s not a choice.”

 “Lance.”

“We shouldn’t – don’t do this because you think we have to, we shouldn’t… we can’t force ourselves to do something we’re not comfortable with just because we think we should. There will be other planets, there will be other Kings, there will be other armies, and if you don’t want to do this…” he looks Keith dead in the face. “Then Allura can suck it up.”

Keith considers this. He almost thinks that Lance is trying to get them both out of it, but for some strange reason, it feels almost like Lance is giving _him_ a way out.

He straightens up and meets Lance’s eye.

“I’m game if you are,” he says.

Lance smiles.

* * *

They grab a sofa on the outskirts of the room where they are mostly alone. The King is in the middle of the room, on a makeshift throne. There is a Tezzuk on their lap.

“That’s disgusting,” Lance mutters in his ear. Keith jumps. He had been so engrossed in the weird display around him that he had forgotten Lance was even here.

“How long does this ritual last, even?” Lance mutters. “Do you think they have good stamina? Like are we going to be here for hours or are they basically one minute men? Er, one minute… aliens.”

“I am not discussing how long it takes this alien species to orgasm.”

His heart is beating out of his chest, despite his tone. Lance watches the various aliens around the room with half interest, half disgust. Then he suddenly grabs Keith’s arm.

“There’s Xlegna! Yeah, Xlegna, you go baby.”

“You’re a very weird person.”

Just then the King looks up and notices them. They wave from underneath the thinner Tezzuk who is still balancing on their lap.

“Hello, young friends. By all means, you may begin.”

“Gee, thanks,” Keith mutters under his breath. Lance waves awkwardly and then pushes Keith lightly back towards the couch.

“At least the couches are comfortable,” he says. Keith knows that Lance is just as nervous as him; he has spent a lot of time with Lance and he knows how he works, how he acts, and he knows despite the forced calmness in his voice that he is as freaked out as Keith is. For his part, Keith’s palms are sweating up a storm, and he’s pretty sure that with their advanced hearing, the Tezzuk in the room could probably hear his heart beat.

Keith sits up and turns his body so he’s facing Lance. Lance does the same, an arm slung over the back of the couch.

“So, uh,” Keith says slowly. “What do we… how do we, uh, start?”

“I think you’re probably supposed to kiss me,” Lance says nervously.

“Why do I have to be the one to kiss you?”

“Is this really the discussion we’re going to have?”

“I’m just asking.”

“ _Fine,_ half and half, then.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

This is so ridiculous, and Keith knows it’s ridiculous, and Lance knows it’s ridiculous. But it’s ridiculous in a comforting way so they both hold onto it, this stupid bickering about who has to be the one to kiss who.

Lance takes a deep breath, and Keith does the same. _For the galaxy,_ he thinks. _It will be over soon._

Obviously there is a part of him that doesn’t _want_ it to be over, that wants to revel in this only chance that he has to kiss Lance, but the fact that Lance doesn’t actually _want_ this means he can’t enjoy it. Lance is doing this for the universe, so for his sake, Keith will treat it the same, as if it were nothing but another mission.

When their lips finally meet Keith sucks in a breath and Lance laughs breathlessly. “Just lean back and think of England,” he mutters, and Keith’s brain is too busy trying to make sense of Lance’s lips on his to even begin to think about what that means. Lance leans in again to kiss him gently and this time Keith manages to keep his cool, kissing him back softly, hands clenched at his side.

Keith had kissed one person before, when he was sixteen, but it hadn’t lasted very long and quite frankly it was pretty forgettable. Keith doesn’t know what Lance’s kissing experience looks like, because on the one hand Lance flirts with everyone, but on the other hand he remembers quite clearly Lance’s self-deprecating comments.

Lance’s lips are incredibly soft. Keith’s first thought is that he probably moisturizes them. He always used to think Lance’s skincare routine was utterly ridiculous. Now he’s weirdly appreciative.

He isn’t entirely sure what to do with his hands. Right now they are clenched by his side. He wants to touch Lance, somehow, but he isn’t going to be the one to force Lance’s hand before he’s comfortable.

But shortly after he has this thought Lance’s hand comes up to bury itself in his hair. He makes a noise and jerks slightly in surprise, and Lance must take this as a sign that Keith is not enjoying himself, because he immediately pulls back.

“Sorry,” he says, slightly out of breath. Keith shakes his head.

“No, it’s okay, you just – surprised me.”

“Oh. Okay.” Lance takes a breath and then smiles. Keith tries to smile back, but there are about of million things going through his brain right now, not least of which was the fact that he had just _made out with Lance_ in a room filled with aliens about to have sex.

Occasionally Keith would allow himself to imagine a day when he would be allowed to kiss Lance, some strange, rearranging of the universe that ended with Lance somehow becoming interested in him.

In all of those imaginings, not one of them involved an alien orgy.

Keith glances around at the amount of people around them, this strange species who is invading this moment he’s dreamed about, and all at once it becomes too much for him.

“Hey.” Fingers grip his chin and Lance forces Keith’s gaze back to his. “Don’t focus on them. Just focus on me.”

“I –”

“I’m going to kiss you again,” Lance says, quietly, giving Keith time to back out of it, but when he doesn’t, Lance leans forwards once again and presses his lips back to Keith’s. This time when Lance winds a hand through Keith’s hair Keith stays put, and eventually he manages to move his own hands to link his fingers lightly around one of Lance’s wrists.

He doesn’t know how long they would have continued like this, just steadily making out on the couch, except as time passes, something starts happening, something strange in the pit of his stomach. He recognizes it as arousal, but it is something different, something heavier. It is a frantic pounding in his veins, something wild in his heartbeat.

He pulls away. “Do you feel that?”

And Lance _moans,_ a long, drawn out sound that echoes around in Keith’s head, and God, he’s going to remember that sound for the rest of his life, going to go over it again and again, going to hear it every time he lies down, every time he closes his eyes.

“Yes,” is the breathless answer. “It _hurts.”_

Lance is right, now that he focuses on it. The weight in his stomach, the rushing in his ears, it is so wild, so uncontrolled that it is painful. Lance buries his face in Keith’s neck.

“Do you remember what the King said?” He says, and his breath hits Keith’s neck and makes him shudder. “About the pheromones?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Keith responds, or tries to, but Lance’s mouth opens on his neck and starts lightly sucking, and Keith completely forgets what words even are.

“I think that’s what’s happening,” Lance says. “Because I – Jesus, Keith, _fuck,”_ he says, which Keith wholeheartedly agrees with.

“We should… we should stop,” Keith says, and it is the hardest thing he has ever had to say. “This isn’t… I feel like…” he doesn’t know how to articulate what he wants to say, doesn’t know how to say the exact opposite of what his body wants. “I feel like this is wrong,” he says, trying his hardest to ignore Lance’s tongue and the fact that he’s totally going to have a hickey, Jesus Christ he was going to have a hickey from _Lance_ what the fuck was happening. “Like the lines of consent are really – blurred, fuck.”

With what Keith can only imagine is great difficulty, Lance detaches himself from Keith’s neck. “Yeah, okay. I see what you mean.”

But God, Lance looks _wrecked._ His hair is a mess and his lips are red and shining wet and he is looking at Keith in a way that is almost indecent, and wow, it’s not helping Keith’s conviction that they should stop.

“Unless,” Lance starts, and Keith could kiss him, because he knows that tone. “Now that we’ve established that we _can_ stop, if we want to, technically doesn’t that mean that if we start again, doesn’t that mean that it’s a decision made between two consenting adults who –”

Keith kisses him again, partly because he knows where Lance is going with that and partly because _shut up and kiss me Lance._ Now that they have effectively gotten rid of any residual guilty feelings the whole thing becomes way better, somehow, and as soon as he has Lance’s tongue in his mouth again that painful feeling in his stomach seems to lessen, but the desire only seems to get stronger. It’s like no matter what he does he can’t get enough of Lance, and any awkward feelings he might have expected to have – making out with Lance on a couch in a room filled with other people, aliens, whatever – are second to the want that is pooling in his stomach and lower, and all he can focus on is how much he wants Lance, in every way it is possible to want a person.

“Keith,” Lance says, tearing his mouth away from Keith’s, tilting his head so Keith can press kisses to his neck. “Buddy. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m pretty sure that if I don’t suck you off, like, immediately, I might actually physically die.”

Keith groans, but then he says, “Please do not ever call me _buddy_ when talking about sucking me off ever again.”

Lance chuckles, which quickly devolves into a groan when Keith bites down lightly on his jaw.

“Can we go back to the room? Please. Please.”

“Do you not remember the entire reason we are _here_ right now? The mating ceremony? The alliance?”

“Keith. Dude. I literally could not care less about the alliance right now.”

Keith agrees, technically, but he still feels like he should put up a little bit of a fight. “But –”

And then Lance shifts against him, and Keith feels hardness pushing against his leg, and any protests he had are quickly lost. Fuck the King, fuck the alliance, fuck anything that wasn’t Lance pressed up against him right now.

“Yeah, okay, okay, no one else is paying attention anyway.”

_Bad idea, bad idea,_ says a voice in his head that is kind of a weird mix between Shiro and Allura. Keith kindly tells that voice to shut the fuck up.

Any awkwardness, any shyness, any reluctance he might have normally felt under this situation is nonexistent. All there is is desire, so strong it is painful, and the knowledge that the only thing that will help, that will stop the painful thrumming under his skin, is Lance, Lance’s skin and his mouth and his hands. _Bad idea, bad idea,_ Shiro/Allura says, but then Lance grinds down on him and bites Keith’s lip and Keith doesn’t honestly give two shits what Shiro/Allura says. All that matters is Lance.

“Let’s go,” he says, and they go, separating only long enough to maneuver themselves off the couch and back out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lance in a crop top 2k16


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “This is going to be really awkward tomorrow, isn’t it?”

Lance doesn’t wait, once they get into the room, to do exactly as he said he was going to. He doesn’t even let Keith get to the bed. He just pushes him back against the door, smiles sheepishly when Keith hisses as the doorknob digs into his back, and then drops to his knees.

The sight of this does very complicated things to Keith’s insides, and his head falls back against the wall before Lance even touches him. When he glances back at Lance, the asshole is smirking.

“Am I that good?” He asks, and Keith isn’t sure if he wants to smack that smile or kiss it off of him.

“Shut up,” Keith mutters. Lance laughs, but then he cuts off rather abruptly.

“I’ve never done this,” he says, nervously.

“Um. Okay.” He doesn’t know what Lance wants him to say. He doesn’t know if he’s supposed to care.

“I just wanted to tell you,” Lance says, still sounding more nervous than he is used to Lance sounding.

“Okay,” he says again. “I mean, same.”

“Wait, really?” Lance sounds surprised. Keith opens his mouth to respond, but it is incredibly hard to have a conversation with someone who is kneeling between your legs.

“I’m an orphan who lives in the desert, Lance!”

“But you’re really attractive!”

Keith blanches. “I think that’s the alien aphrodisiac that’s talking.”

Lance makes a frustrated noise. “Just because I’m so horny I think I might actually die doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate attractive people.”

“Can you do me a favour? If we’re going to have a conversation can you stand up? Because this is really awkward.”

Instead of listening, Lance just grins and opens the flap between Keith’s legs.

Keith bursts out laughing.

“I’m sorry. This is just really fucking ridiculous.”

Lance starts to laugh, too, leaning his head against Keith’s thigh. “You have a flap.”

“I told you it was for easy access.”

“Please take these off, I literally cannot take you seriously like this.”

“Do it yourself,” Keith says, with a boldness that surprises him. But Lance just grins up at him and does – for once – what he’s told.

As soon as Lance touches him his head thumps back against the door again. Most of him is enjoying this – like, really enjoying this – but there’s a part of him that is internally screaming because holy shit, this was Lance? This was Lance kneeling at his feet and jerking him off.

When Lance finally puts his mouth to good use, Keith thinks that a part of him might have actually died. It is not just the warmth – it is the fact that for the first time since this started, the painful feeling of desire that has been suffocating him finally ebbs. Keith can’t help but jerk his hips a bit, and Lance leans away from him.

“Do you mind?”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Keith says frantically. “I’ll stay still.” Lance places his hands on Keith’s thighs to keep him still and resumes.

Keith has nothing to hold this up against, so he has no real way of knowing if blow jobs were always this messy or if it was just Lance. Truthfully he couldn’t care less. What Lance might lack in skill he more than makes up for in enthusiasm, and the fact that it was _Lance_ who had his mouth around him made it more important then whether it was _skilled_ or not.

He thinks the fact that it’s Lance is what is making this so good. Don’t get him wrong, he’s pretty sure that getting a blow job from anyone would be nice, but the fact that it’s Lance, the guy he’s had feeling for since who even knew when, is what’s making this such a mind-blowing (pun NOT intended, he wasn’t Lance) experience.

The problem, though, is that it’s _really fucking good,_ and Keith has a very strong feeling that this strange desperate feeling in his stomach, the thing that is fueling him, fueling them both, will fade with an orgasm. And Keith doesn’t want this to end, for many reasons, but also because he isn’t sure how competent he’ll be on getting Lance off once common sense starts seeping through the franticness.

He grabs Lance’s hair and tugs gently. Lance pulls off and shoots Keith an annoyed look. “I was kind of in the middle of something.”

“I don’t want to come yet,” Keith says, voice sounding slightly hoarser than he would have liked.

“Well that makes one of us,” Lance says in a way that is almost petulant. Keith laughs almost giddily, yanking Lance up by his shirt and kissing him hard, pushing him backwards towards the bed and pinning him down, kneeling over top of him. Lance is making the obscenest noises, little grunts and moans that are driving Keith fucking insane. Lance kisses with an intensity in which Lance does everything, putting every part of himself into it (literally and figuratively), and when Keith can’t breathe any longer he pulls off and gasps lightly when Lance turns his attention to Keith’s neck, sucking and biting lightly on the skin there, and Keith knows, he _knows_ he’s going to have a mark, but he doesn’t have the will to tell Lance to stop. He doesn’t _want_ Lance to stop.

He’s not entirely sure what he wants. Whenever he tries to focus on it all he can think of is _Lance,_ Lance’s name repeated over and over in his head. He wanted Lance, wanted to feel him and taste him and hear him, wanted him to moan Keith’s name, wanted to make him come, wanted to wrap his mouth and his hands around him, stretch out their bodies so they were touching at every possible place. Lance tugs at his shirt and Keith lets him lift it over his head.

“I’m pretty sure we’re both supposed to be naked,” he says, self-conscious under Lance’s gaze. He expects some sort of smart ass comment but all Lance does is nod, staring in what almost seems like awe at Keith above him, and helps Keith remove the clothes.

Once Lance’s clothes have been removed Keith presses kisses down his body, and when he wraps his hand around Lance’s cock, Lance hisses.

“Jesus,” he breathes out.

“No,” Keith says into Lance’s neck. “Still just me.”

Lance groans again, but this one is born more of frustration than pleasure. “Keith, buddy, I’m happy you’re finally developing a sense of humour, truly I am, but do you think you could maybe wait until after this is done?”

“I have a sense of humour.”

“Where?”

Keith bites lightly on Lance’s ear, which promptly shuts him up.

Lance slides his hands into Keith’s hair and pulls lightly, bringing Keith’s mouth back to Lance’s. “Your hair is so fucking stupid,” he mutters, tugging on it in a way that is sending shivers right down Keith’s body. “Like, honestly, what the fuck.”

“I’m starting to think you _like_ my hair.”

Lance makes a not very convincing noise of derision. “Please.”

“You like my hair,” Keith says. “How long have you liked it for? Have you always liked it? Is that why you always stared at me in class?”

Lance responds to this by taking advantage of Keith’s distraction and flipping them, so that it is Lance who is hovering over Keith.

Hovering is probably the wrong word, actually. There is no space between their bodies, just a dizzying amount of skin on skin, and Lance grinds his hips down. It is electric; it is nothing Keith has ever felt before, and he lets out a quite frankly embarrassing noise. Lance doesn’t seem to notice, just buries his head in Keith’s neck and starts sucking another mark into Keith’s skin.

With every motion of Lance’s hips the painful feeling in his stomach reduces, and with every kiss it swells again. It is desire Keith has never felt before, a burning, suffocating feeling that is only assuaged by Lance. Lance’s frantic, erratic movement of his hips sends jolts up his body, and each noise that escapes his mouth – because Lance was loud in everything he did, of _course_ he was going to be loud in bed, too – seems to have a direct line to Keith’s hips, which jerk up with each sound to meet Lance.

He has forgotten everything else that isn’t Lance on top of him. He has forgotten why they are here, where they are, why this is happening. The only important thing is the way Lance keeps kissing him even as his breathing is beginning to get irregular.

It is messy and out of control and _painful,_ it is everything Keith has never let himself want. He doesn’t want it to end. He needs it to end. It is a mess of contradictions and Keith doesn’t understand a fucking thing.

It’s perfect.

“Keith.” Lance’s voice is barely above a whisper. Keith wants to stop them, wants to explore everything he hasn’t had a chance to yet, wants to touch and taste, wants to make this last. But he can feel something building in his stomach, and he wants to fight in but he also wants, more than anything, to give into it.

Because the one things he knows is that once this is over it will never happen again. And he doesn’t want it like this, doesn’t want this frantic, rushed experience. He wants to kiss for hours, wants to learn every dip and line and curve of Lance’s body. Wants to remember every moment of this.

“Keith,” Lance mutters again, and his voice is _wrecked._ Keith wants to fight it, but it’s more powerful than his will, and whatever strange effect of the Tezzuk pheromones is too much for him to fight. He needs to dull this feeling.

When he gives into it Lance lets out a cry that seems to directly correlate with Keith coming all over him and follows shortly after. As soon as his orgasm fades out the painful desire that had been fueling him this entire time shuts off almost immediately, as if someone had pressed a button and turned it off. But although that frantic need is gone, post-orgasm bliss is still there, so even though he is slightly horrified when he comes back to his senses, he is still too blissed out to truly care.

“Um,” Lance says, rolling off of him. “That was. Okay.”

“That was okay?”

“No!” Lance objects quickly. “It wasn’t _okay._ I mean, it was okay, it was way better than okay, it was –”

“Lance,” Keith says. “Chill.”

“I’m chilled. I’m super chilled. I’m practically frozen.”

Keith pulls on the blankets to cover his naked body and turns onto his side to face Lance. “You’re freaking out,” he says. Lance tucks himself under the blankets as well.

“I am not. I’m totally calm.”

“Breathe,” Keith says. He’s actually kind of thankful that Lance is having this meltdown, because it’s saving him from having the exact same break down. “Lance. Take a breath.”

Lance does.

“And again.”

Lance does.

“Okay. Okay. I’m good.” He grins at Keith, who doesn’t quite have the energy to smile back.

And then he leans forward and kisses him again.

Keith kisses him back, because of _course_ he kisses him back, but he doesn’t fully understand why. He doesn’t feel the intense desire anymore; the orgasm had dulled it, but he doesn’t know why Lance would still be kissing him if he didn’t still feel some aspect of the frenzy. Maybe it hadn’t fully left Lance. Maybe his orgasm hadn’t been as good as Keith’s.

Keith isn’t going to spend too much time dwelling on this, not when Lance is kissing him again. It is slow and everything Keith had wanted it to be; there is no more franticness. Lance kisses him deeply and Keith just closes his eyes and enjoys it.

“This is going to be really awkward tomorrow, isn’t it?”

“Shut up, Lance,” Keith mutters. Lance smiles as he kisses him, and Keith lets himself pretend.

“Do you think the King is going to be angry?”

“Shut up, Lance.”

Lance laughs and continues to kiss him, almost lazily. “Shutting up.”

* * *

This time when they wake up, they are practically cuddling. Lance has an arm around him and his nose buried in Keith’s hair, legs tangled together. Keith lays there, frozen, unsure what he’s supposed to do. He wants to move away from Lance, but he doesn’t want to wake him. And okay, maybe there’s a small part of him that doesn’t hate waking up like this. So sue him.

After he isn’t sure how long there’s finally a knock on the door, and Keith takes this as a sign that he should probably get up. He grabs the first pants he can find, but discovers quickly by the fact that they are too long and a little too big that they are Lance’s.

Oh well.

When he opens the door there is a Tezzuk he has not meant there. He nods awkwardly at him.

Now, in the light of the day, after a night’s sleep and no more alien aphrodisiac’s messing with his brain, Keith realizes just how fucked they are. They had one job, and they had botched it.

“The King would like to see you both,” the Tezzuk says. Keith can’t read anything into their tone. He has no idea whether the King is super offended or not, whether they’ve fucked everything up.

“Shit,” Keith mutters. The Tezzuk doesn’t react to this. “Okay. We’ll be right there.”

“I will wait outside to bring you.”

_Shit._

“Uh. Okay.” He closes the door and leans against it, leaning his head back, but he is reminded rather quickly of the _last_ time he had been in that position and quickly stands up.

The voices must have woken Lance, because he is sitting up on his elbows. When Keith looks at him Lance smiles, slowly and soft in the morning light, and it causes his heart to flip.

“I think those are my pants,” Lance says, and the whole situation is just _too intimate,_ and Keith can’t stand it anymore.

“We have to meet with the King,” he says, and his tone is brusque and slightly harsh, and he can see Lance recoil slightly. He feels immediately guilty, but he forces himself to stay strong. Last night meant more to Keith than it did to Lance, and he needs to separate himself from this entire situation before he ends up hurting more than he already is. “I’m going to take a shower. We shouldn’t keep him waiting for long.”

“Okay,” Lance says, unsure and maybe a little hurt, and Keith hates himself. He wants to say sorry; wants to crawl back into bed and kiss Lance the way they had last night, but he knows it isn’t like that anymore. Whatever had gotten into Lance would be gone, now.

They had to go back to normal.

Keith stands in front of the glass in the bathroom and his eyes are immediately drawn to a large mark on his neck. He touches it lightly with one finger.

He steps under the water and tries to wash every trace of Lance off himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the closest i have ever gotten to writing smut........literally after i wrote the word "cock" i had to get up and take a walk lmao save me


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let Shiro and Allura fondle each other in a room filled with aliens, Keith was done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hahahahaha im literally dead i hate work pls let me die!!!!!!! im sorry this took so long!!!!

When Keith gets out of the shower Lance still isn’t ready.

“What are you doing?”

“I need to shower, too,” he says. “If you’ll remember, you kind of –”

“Right,” Keith says hurriedly. “Okay.” He knows what Lance was going to say, and he doesn’t want to hear it.

_You kind of came all over me._

“I’ll be quick,” Lance says, and Keith watches him head into the bathroom with a strange feeling in his chest.

Shortly after Lance starts up the shower there’s another knock on the door.

“Yeah, we’re coming, we’re – oh,” he says, as he opens the door. “Xlegna. Hi.”

“No rush,” Xlegna says. “I just wanted to tell you I will be taking you to see the King.”

“Oh, okay.” He isn’t sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. “Approximately how fucked are we?”

Xlegna makes a face. “The King is not happy,” they admit. “But there is still a chance. They are waiting to see what you have to say.”

“Shit,” Keith mutters. “We wouldn’t have left. We weren’t planning on it. But that… that thing you guys do, that scent you emit… it made us feel stuff, and I couldn’t… it was too much. I couldn’t deal with it, neither of us could. I don’t know what it was, but –”

“It was you, Keith,” Xlegna interrupts. Keith gives him a questioning look. “The Tezzuk scent, as you say, it does not create, it magnifies. It is an amplifier.”

Keith’s brain has completely flat lined. Xlegna must think his silence means he doesn’t understand, so they keep talking.

“Any feelings you may have had were your own, just made stronger. If it was too much for you handle, that is just because of the strength of your feelings.”

Keith’s mouth is bone dry. “Wait. So – wait. So last night was… so _Lance –”_

“Surely you are not surprised at the strength of your mate’s feelings?”

_So then Lance –_

“I… no, of course not,” Keith says, belatedly realizing that he can’t be acting this surprised around people who believe that he and Lance were dating. “I just – never mind.”

Xlegna gives him a worried looks and Keith tries to give them a reassuring smile.

Xlegna looks even more worried, so it must not have worked.

“I’m gonna go get Lance. We’ll be out, uh. Soon.”

Xlegna nods, and Keith ducks back into the room.

Lance is mercifully still in the shower. Keith collapses against the door, sliding down it into a crouch. He runs his fingers through his hair and stares in wonder at the bathroom door.

_It does not create, it magnifies._ Keith runs the sentence over and over in his head. He’s having a hard time wrapping his brain around this. He doesn’t know how’s supposed to feel about this. He can’t even think straight.

_Any feelings you may have had were your own, just made stronger._ His brain is going fucking insane. There are a million different thoughts going on in his head. On the other side of the bathroom door he can still hear the shower going.

_Surely you are not surprised at the strength of your mate’s feelings?_

There had to have been some kind of misunderstanding, some kind of cultural barrier, because that would mean… that would mean…

_That would mean Lance felt the same._

Keith should be thrilled. That meant that everything last night had been real. All of it. And then afterwards, when they had kissed – Keith had thought that Lance must have felt some leftover Tezzuk power, but that means it would have shut off like it had for Keith, but Lance had just wanted to kiss him. Every kiss, every touch, the way Keith’s name had fell from his lips… all of it was _real._

So why isn’t he happy? He should be happy. He should be ecstatic. But for some reason all he feels is dread.

Maybe it’s just the looming fact that once Lance gets out of the shower, they have to go see the King, and Keith has no idea how they’ll react. If it wasn’t good enough, then quite frankly fuck this alliance. The galaxy was huge, and Keith was not going through this again. Let Shiro and Allura fondle each other in a room filled with aliens, Keith was done.

After this was sorted, he’ll figure out what’s going on with his feelings about Lance, and Lance’s apparent feelings for him. But Keith is too strung out to deal with more than one of those things at the same time.

He lifts his hand and rubs his fingers over the spot on his neck where he knows the hickey is. He is tapping it absentmindedly when the bathroom door opens and Lance steps out.

He looks at Keith with a strange expression. “Why are you sitting on the ground?”

Keith stands back up and doesn’t answer this, instead just saying, “Xlegna is outside. It’s time to face the King.”

Lance’s eyes close briefly as if he had completely blocked this out when he was bathing. “God, I was kind of hoping this was all some weird dream,” he says.

“Weird wet dream,” Keith corrects, and Lance grins at him before Keith remembers how awkward this was supposed to be. “C’mon,” he says, and when Lance reaches for his hand, he steps out of the way as if he hadn’t even seen him try.

* * *

Lance tries to take his hand again outside the door of the King’s throne room, and this time Keith lets him. He figures they should put up some sort of united front. And maybe he wants the comfort, too.

“It will be all right,” Xlegna says, although they don’t say it very assuredly.

Lance lets out a sudden burst of laughter and Keith stares at him.

“Sorry,” he says. “I just – this is really fucking ridiculous, you know?”

Keith can’t help the smile that spreads across his face.

Xlegna is looking at them both like they’re crazy. “Ready?” They ask, and with a glance at each other both Keith and Lance nod.

The King is sitting and staring at them, and Keith notices with trepidation that they look pissed as all hell.

“Hello, paladins. How nice of you to grace us with your presence.”

_Shit, shit, shit, shit,_ shit.

“Er, good morning, Your Majesty,” Lance says, voice unsure.

“Perhaps you can tell, but I am not happy.”

_I thought that was just your face._ Keith makes a mental note to file this away later to tell Lance, who was sure to appreciate it. Then he remembered that Lance had fucking _sucked him off last night_ and also had goddamn _feelings_ for him and their life was too complicated for joking around anymore.

“Uh, yes,” he says. “That is pretty, uh. Clear.”

“The Tezzuk mating ceremony is the most important day of the year. It stands for love, peace, and rebirth. It is the one day a year when people put aside their differences and engage in something beautiful together.”

Jesus, this guy sounded like a Hallmark card. A really, really weird Hallmark card, but a Hallmark card nonetheless.

“It is the most important ritual in our history, and you spat in the face of it.”

“We didn’t –” Keith interjects, wanting to explain that they didn’t spit in the face of it, that they still _did_ the actual mating, thank you very much, just in a different place in the castle.

The King does not allow him to finish.

“You left to rut helplessly against each other instead of sharing that experience with us, the one thing you were asked to do.”

Keith is pretty sure they were asked to do more than that, and even if they hadn’t been, the one thing they had been asked had been a pretty big thing, but he is more focused on the fact that when the King said the word _rut,_ their eyes slid to the hickey on Keith’s neck.

“We’re sorry, Your Majesty,” Lance says. “We hadn’t meant to leave, honestly, it was just… in our culture mating is considered to be a strictly private thing. It was hard for us to put that aside.”

“You want me to risk the wellbeing of my planet by fighting a war against the Galra and yet you cannot even honour our traditions?”

Keith is about to interrupt and say that that is completely unfair, that the wellbeing of the planet was threatened anyway, that the Galra didn’t give a fuck about mating ceremonies or whether Lance and Keith held up their side of the bargain, that they would attack anyway, but the door is flung open and a Tezzuk runs in, wringing their hands.

“Highness, we are sorry, we couldn’t stop them.”

“Couldn’t stop _who?”_ The King says, annoyed at being interrupted.

And then one of the most beautiful sights that Keith has ever seen (second only to Lance, post orgasm, lips red and eyes hooded and staring at Keith like he was all he ever wanted) appears in the form of Allura stomping her way into the throne room, followed closely by Shiro. Listen, Keith has never wanted to kiss a woman, but he got pretty damn close in that moment.

“Your Highness,” she says, tone polite but eyes blazing. “I am Princess Allura of the Alteans, and these are my paladins. I understand that there has been a bit of a misunderstanding.”

“Why did Allura come?” Keith mutters to Lance, who tears his eyes away from the scene to look back at Keith.

“Because I called her in the bathroom,” he says. “I figured we might need some backup.” He grins, and God, Keith _loves_ him, and Lance has marks from him, too, not quite as prevalent since Keith hadn’t worked quite as hard at them, but he follows them with his eyes, from Lance’s jaw down his neck and disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt. He wants to kiss him again, wants to thank him, but all he does is squeeze his hand hard. Lance squeezes back.

The King looks at Allura as if not quite seeing her, before blinking their confusion away and sitting up straighter.

“Princess Allura,” they say, sounding slightly more nasally than normal. “Welcome.”

“I am grateful for your hospitality,” she says grandly. Keith is amazed at her poise. “But I understand that there have been some setbacks in our forming an alliance.”

“The only setbacks have been caused by your paladins going back on our deal!” They say, their tone getting more and more aggravated. It is clear that they are threatened greatly by Allura.

Allura seems to consider this. “You are correct, Your Highness. My paladins did not hold up their end of the bargain. I am truly sorry for whatever inconvenience this may have caused for you.” Then she turns to Keith and Lance and says, without even a second glance at their clasped hands, “Come, you two. Let’s go back to the ship.”

This surprises both Keith and Lance, who once again exchange a look, but they are so used to following Allura that they both follow after her immediately. The King stands up.

“Where are you going?”

Allura turns back as if she had forgotten the King was there. “You said it yourself. Our treaty has been broken. My paladins did not hold up their end of the bargain, so we shall leave. Thank you for your understanding, Highness, and I am sorry for the irresponsibility of my team.”

Keith isn’t entirely sure what’s happening, but he trails after Allura anyway, since she seems to know what she’s doing.

“Well, hang on!” The King sputters. “What about the Galra?”

“What about them?”

The King’s eyes are almost bulging out of his head. “You are just going to leave us to fend for ourselves?”

“Your terms were clear, Your Highness. Unless Keith and Lance did not relay them properly to me? In exchange for an army, they were to complete the mating ceremony of your people. They didn’t do this, which means you are under no obligation to fulfill your end of the bargain.”

“So we shall receive no protect – no assistance from Voltron?”

Allura looks convincingly confused. “Are you saying you wish to ignore the original terms of the agreement in favour of a straight out alliance?”

Keith realizes, belatedly, what Allura is doing at roughly the same time Lance does, judging from the grin that Keith spies from the corner of his eye. Up until now, they had all the power, but Allura was calling their bluff. Up until now, the King had believed that they needed the Tezzuk more than the Tezzuk needed them. Let them believe that the paladins of Voltron were ready to walk and leave them to the Galra.

Keith wonders who came up with this plan. If he hadn't known any better he would say it had been Lance's, but obviously that couldn't be. It seems too subtle for Allura, who was too honest a person to play tricks such as these, and it certainly wasn't like Allura to threaten to leave an entire planet to fend for themselves against the Galra. Clearly her reputation hadn't reached the Tezzuk, since if they knew a damn thing about her they would know that she would never leave them defenseless. Maybe it had been Shiro's idea, or Hunk, even, Coran perhaps, or maybe a mixture of all of them. 

But it took a princess to make it work. 

The King looks between Allura, Keith and Lance, and Shiro, who hasn’t said anything but is still standing behind Allura, arms crossed, looking impressive and slightly scary.

“Perhaps,” they say, and Keith can practically see them deflating. “We can come to another arrangement. Leader to leader.”

Allura beams. “I knew we could work something out! Now, I’m sure Keith and Lance are eager to return to the ship and reunite with the other paladins and their lions.”

_Red._ Keith had almost forgotten about her, except it was impossible to completely forget about her when she had become such an integral aspect of him. He knows Lance feels the same sense of longing and anticipation at the aspect of seeing Blue, since he clenches Keith’s fingers, almost involuntarily.

“Yes, of course,” the King says, sparing them barely a glance and keeping his focus on Allura, someone who has already proven that she couldn’t be bullied. “It was a pleasure to meet you,” they say, nodding once. Lance tugs at his hand.

“I think that’s our cue to leave,” he says, and Keith follows him out. He casts a glance back at Shiro, hoping he was going to follow them so they wouldn’t be alone together, but Shiro stays where he is, flanking Allura like a bodyguard that she doesn’t really need.

Once they are outside the room Keith takes his hand back and pretends he doesn’t see the wary look Lance gives him because of it.

Time to get back to normal. 


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "If I find out you two haven’t spoken by tomorrow, I’m locking you in the supply closet until you sort this out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i dont have any appropriate excuses for why this took so long and i'm sorry. sometimes life gets in the way, but please know that no matter how much time elapses between updates, this story will not be abandoned 
> 
> this likely means that this story is no longer compatible with season 2, which I have not yet had a chance to watch.

The first thing that happens when they get back to the castle ship is Hunk envelops both of them in a bone crushing hug. When they are released, and Lance gingerly tests his ribs to make sure they were all intact, Pidge waggles their eyebrows.

“So how was the trip?”

Keith turns red as Lance lunges at them. Pidge laughs maniacally as they dodge out of Lance’s grasp. Coran watches this whole thing looking amused.

“I’m going to see Red,” Keith says quietly, excusing himself from the scene. He really, really needs to be alone right now.

As soon as he enters the hangar Red starts purring loudly in his head, and Keith can’t help the calming feeling that spreads over him.

“Hey,” he says, smiling as she opens for him, and he runs his hands over her controls and revels in the warmth he feels in his lion’s presence. “Boy do I have a lot to tell you.”

* * *

Shiro and Allura come back a little later looking smug. “It worked,” Allura says. “The King has forgiven Keith and Lance for their, er, blunder, shall we say, and has agreed to ally the Tezzuk with us.”

“Remind me why we couldn’t have just done that in the first place?” Lance says petulantly. Keith can’t help but agree. “This whole thing was a huge pain in the ass.”

“I bet,” Pidge says with a grin. Lance smacks them on the back of the head while Allura puts a hand to her mouth, politely hiding her smile.

“Keith, Lance, thank you for what you did. I am so proud to have people so… dedicated, on my team.”

Keith just nods, staring down at the ground, refusing to look any of them in the eye. He is dying to know what Lance is doing, how he is taking this, but he can’t bring himself to look.

“Now,” Allura says commandingly, “I’m sure you two are exhausted, so let’s just have a slow day today. The King has invited me and Shiro to dinner later to iron out the terms of alliance. The rest of you are invited as well, if you so choose,” she adds, but Keith shakes his head before she even finishes the sentence.

“I’ll come,” Lance says unexpectedly. “I didn’t get to say goodbye to Xlegna.”

Of course, Keith thinks bitterly. God forbid they leave without Lance saying goodbye to Xlegna.

_You’re fucking ridiculous,_ he reprimands himself.

“I’m going to go do some training,” he says to nobody in particular, excusing himself quickly from the room and ignoring the way Lance’s eyes bore into his back.

* * *

Keith trains until his limbs utterly ache, and it is only then that he can no longer justify ignoring Shiro, who came in about twenty minutes ago. When Keith finally turns towards him, he wastes no time in saying, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No, I don’t want to talk about it,” Keith replies bitterly. “I want to pretend that it never happened and to have everything go back to normal.”

“It’s normal to feel… conflicted –”

“Shiro,” Keith interrupts. “I don’t need you to give me The Talk, and I don’t need you to be overly concerned, and I don’t need you to worry. It was a weird and awkward and embarrassing situation but it’s over now. Everything is fine.”

Shiro does not look convinced, probably because Shiro has always been able to know what Keith was lying. Asshole.

“I’m here if you need me,” is what he finally says. “I always am.”

“I know,” Keith says, fiddling with the hem of his shirt. Shiro eyes him for a few moments before placing a hand on his shoulder. He leaves, then, and Keith heads back to his room to shower.

It is only when he catches sight of his reflection in the mirror that he remembers the huge hickey on his neck. He rubs his hands over his face and stares angrily at it, as if he could look intimidating enough that it would go away.

Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t. Keith taps it gently, remembering the way Lance’s lips had latched onto his skin, the way he had bit down before kissing him gently, the way it had felt to have Lance’s mouth around his cock, the enthusiasm with which Lance did everything making him feel like he was about to literally die, that painful feeling in the pit of his stomach lessened only by Lance touching every part of his body.

Keith glares at his half-hard dick in the mirror. “Stop that,” he says firmly, before deciding that he’s going _fucking insane_ because he is literally talking to his erection, this was all Lance’s fault.

His arousal does not go down in the shower, and with an angry noise Keith wraps a hand around himself and jerks off as quickly as possible, remembering the way Lance had whimpered his name as he moved against him.

* * *

Shiro, Allura, and Lance come back from dinner later that night and Keith is dragged away from where he had been sulking in his room

The rest of the night is a tense affair, despite everything. He sits as far away as possible from Lance and doesn’t engage in the conversation, firmly avoiding Shiro’s angry glare as Hunk and Allura both try and fail to integrate him in to their discussion. Lance keeps shooting him glances and then looking away, and eventually Keith, blaming a long, stressful day, says he’s going to bed.

To his utter dismay and horror, Lance stands and says the same thing.

The walk to the rooms is tense and silent. It feels strange to walk without holding Lance’s hand, and he shoves his own into his pockets to avoid the urge to reach out and entwine their fingers together. Lance keeps sucking in a breath as if he’s about to say something, but ultimately he stays just as quiet as Keith. Both of them are so distracted that it is only when they reach Lance’s room that Keith realizes they walked right past his room.

“Sorry,” he says, utterly mortified. He was so used to heading to the same room as Lance that he hadn’t even been thinking. It seems impossible that they had only been doing this for a week, because it feels like so much longer. Like all his life has been spent listening to Lance sleep next to him. “I didn’t –”

“Habit,” Lance says with a shrug and a smile. “It’s fine.” The smile slips off his face, and he takes another breath. “Look, Keith –”

“Night, Lance,” Keith says, cutting off whatever he had been about to say. Lance’s face falls and Keith forces himself to look away, rushing off back in the direction of his room.

How the fuck was he supposed to do this? How the fuck were they supposed to go back to normal?

* * *

After that, he tries to ignore Lance as much as possible. It only takes two days of this for Shiro to call him out.

“What are you doing?”

There are a couple of answers to that question. The most literal is lying in bed with a pillow thrown over his face.

The most accurate is _I don’t fucking know._

“I don’t fucking know,” he says, voice muffled by the pillow. The pillow in question is rudely ripped away from his face and he opens his eyes to see Shiro looming over him.

“You’re being ridiculous, is what you’re doing.”

“Why did you ask if you already knew the answer?”

“Keith.” Shiro’s voice is both reprimanding and pitying, in a way that only Shiro could accomplish. Keith grabs at the pillow again, but Shiro, who is a jackass, is holding onto it with his Galra hand, and Keith is no match for that strength.

“I know,” Keith says miserably.

And he does know. He doesn’t need Shiro to tell him he’s fucking up. He is fully aware.

He misses Lance. Fuck, he misses Lance. Even if they hadn’t gone through what they had he would have missed Lance. Even if he hadn’t realized how he felt about him he would have missed Lance. Lance was such a presence in his life that any time without him stood out. He misses Lance like hell, and it’s worse because he knows he doesn’t have to. He doesn’t have to be ignoring him. He’s just being a fucking idiot, and he knows it.

He knows that there is no goddamn reason for this, that he’s being stupid and irrational. He can’t stop thinking about Xlegna telling him that the pheromones amplified, not created. And sure, he knew that he had feelings for Lance, but he was perfectly content, upon realizing this, to shove those feeling as far down inside of himself where he couldn’t reach them and live the rest of his life pining from afar.

But no, Lance had to go and complicate things, because Lance was a fucking asshole. And he doesn’t know what to do with the knowledge that Lance has feelings for him, too. He should be happy.

Instead he’s scared. Terrified, actually, and he can’t exactly put his finger on why. Part of it is that he’s worried Lance’s feelings are born out of proximity and nothing else. That whatever Lance may feel now will disappear when his romantic options are expanded to include more than six people.

Plus – well, Keith has never done this. He doesn’t know how to go about any of it. And he’s afraid, because what if it didn’t work out? Or what if Lance didn’t want to act on it? What if he just wanted to feel things from afar, or what if he was trying to get over Keith, or what if Xlegna had been wrong, and the Tezzuk hormones worked differently on humans than they did on Tezzuk?

Or what if they got together but it didn’t work out, and the universe suffered? What if they had a messy break up and couldn’t form Voltron? They had more important things to worry about then dating.

“You’re overthinking. I can tell.”

“I don’t know what to do,” he finally says, voice small and sounding far more pitiful than he had wanted it to. Shiro sighs.

“Look, I don’t know what happened. I’m not sure if I want to. But you need to talk to him. It’s the only way you’re going to fix things.”

“I think I’m in love with him.”

Shiro takes this as a champ. “Then you definitely have to talk to him.”

Keith huffs out a laugh. “You act as if it’s so goddamn simple.”

“Look, Keith, I’m not going to tell you what to do, but you can’t just ignore him. This isn’t going to solve anything. You’re just going to make yourself miserable.”

Keith doesn’t answer this. He knows Shiro is right, because Shiro is always right, but this whole situation has spiraled so completely out of control that he is overwhelmed by every little thing.

The pillow is lightly replaced over his head.

* * *

He is miserable, truly. Not only because of Lance but because keeping Lance at arms length meant he was putting distance between himself and the others, too. Keith had spent a long time being alone without being lonely, yet now that he had been part of a team for so long, been part of a family, this separation is taking a lot out of him. He misses Lance with a severity that scares him, but he misses the others desperately, too. He misses Hunk, and Pidge. Shiro keeps an eye on him in a way that is more stifling than helpful. Coran seems unsure how to go about any of this. Allura has taken to gazing disapprovingly at him. He knows he’s in the wrong; he knows he needs to fix this, that he is putting all their lives in danger, but every time he goes out to find Lance, to fix things, he loses courage half way through and rushes back to his room.

He hates himself.

This goes on for days until Hunk reaches out to him. This is far worse than all the times Shiro has been to see him. He has been disappointing Shiro for years, but disappointing Hunk is far worse than anything he has ever done.

“We need to talk,” Hunk says, and Keith knows he’s right, but God, he’s afraid. He doesn’t know when he became such a coward.

“I know what you’re going to say,” Keith says tiredly. “I know I’m fucking up.”

“Lance won’t tell me a damn thing. All I know is that he’s utterly miserable, and he’s sulking, and he refuses to talk to you just as much as you refuse to talk to him. I can’t speak sense into him, so I’m going to have to try and talk some sense into you.”

This is not what Keith had been expecting to hear. He had been so busy avoiding Lance and assuming everything was his fault that he hadn’t even realized Lance was avoiding him, too.

“Lance hasn’t told you anything?”

“No. He keeps saying to talk to you if I want to know. I told him to talk to you, and he said he couldn’t. Can you please tell me what the hell is going on?”

Keith hops up on the kitchen counter and leans his elbows on his knees. “What did Lance say when he called for help?”

Hunk looks confused at this diversion. “He said you two hadn’t done what you were supposed to and the King wasn’t going to follow through on the alliance.”

“We slept together.”

Honestly, it was almost worth it, blurting that out, just for Hunk’s reaction. Hunk looks at him. Narrows his eyes. He opens his mouth to speak, closes it again. Cocks his head. Opens his mouth again. Closes it. Eventually he says, “Like… in the same bed, or…”

“No,” Keith says, lips curling up bitterly. “I mean, well, yeah, but also like… you know. We kind of had sex.”

“Kind of?”

“Do you want all the details, Hunk?”

“No!” Hunk says quickly. “I just – no, you know what, it’s not important. Well, it’s pretty important that _that_ happened. So, what, you guys are just really awkward now, is that it?”

Keith closes his eyes. He doesn’t want to explain the whole sordid tale to Hunk. Doesn’t want to tell him that he is in love with Hunk’s best friend, and that Lance probably sort of definitely has some kind of mutual feelings for him, but instead of using this information for good Keith has been making the whole goddamn castle miserable. He doesn’t want to tell Hunk that he has all the tools to fix this but is choosing not to. He doesn’t want to admit to Hunk what a coward he is.

“There’s a lot going on, Hunk,” he says eventually.

“Yeah, well, you guys aren’t the only ones who have stuff going on. We kind of have a universe to save. We have to rescue Pidge’s family, _still._ We have to figure out how to stop the Galra from enslaving and destroying everyone. We have a lot of important stuff to do, and we can’t do it unless you two smarten up.”

Yeah, Keith was right. Getting reprimanded by Hunk was far worse than any amount of yelling Shiro could have ever done.

Hunk is looking at him, and it appears he is waiting for a response. “Er, yeah. You’re right.”

Hunk nods, looking appeased. “So what are you going to do?”

He has a funny feeling that the answer isn’t _do the exact same thing I’ve been doing and pretend we never had this conversation._ “Talk to Lance?”

Hunk nods. “Talk to Lance.”

Keith rubs a hand over his eyes. “I can’t talk to Lance, Hunk. You don’t understand.”

“Then tell me.”

Keith shakes his head. “I can’t,” he says miserably. Lance’s feelings, whatever his feelings may be, weren’t his to share. Hunk crosses his arms.

“Then you have to talk to him.”

He sighs. “Yeah,” he finally says, because Hunk is right, just as Shiro is right. They have important things to do, things that they have to focus on. In the grand scheme of things, saving the universe is more important than feeling uncomfortable because you slept with the guy you’re in love with because aliens made you do it but it turns out he kind of likes you too.

God, when did his life get to be so complicated?

“Yeah, okay, I’ll talk to Lance,” he says again. “But not tonight. I need – give me a night, okay?”

Hunk grudgingly agrees. “But if I find out you two haven’t spoken by tomorrow, I’m locking you in the supply closet until you sort this out.”

Keith can’t help but smile. “Deal,” he says, and then he quickly makes his excuses, because his mind is suddenly preoccupied with what could happen with him, Lance, and an empty closet all to themselves.

Saving the universe was pretty hard when you were a horny teenager most of the time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wish i could have come back with a better chapter but this is mostly just filler tbh. i think there will only be one chapter left after this one, which i will try to have finished soon. 
> 
> again, i'm sorry!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I know that things are awkward, and that we went through a lot of shit, and that it’s kind of weird, now, because I totally sucked your dick –”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wanted to try to get this up quickly because a) i'm going on vacation tomorrow which means i'll be gone for ten days and b) to make up for the wait between the last two chapters

Keith fully intended on talking to Lance like he had told Hunk. Honestly, he was going to do it. He even practiced in the mirror, that’s how serious he was.

“Hey, Lance,” he says to his reflection. “How have you been? Probably shitty, yeah, my fault, anyway, just wanted to let you know that I know you have feelings for me and also, by the way, I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you, so, you know. Sorry about ignoring you.”

He starts over.

“Hey, Lance. So, remember that time we had sex?”

He pushes his palms into his eyes. This was a disaster. Keith didn’t know how the hell he was supposed to do this.

But he had to. For Hunk, and Shiro, and the rest of the team. For Lance.

For himself.

But Lance got to him first.

“What are you _doing?_ ” He asks as a hand wraps around his bicep and yanks him into a small room that serves as an Altean closet. Sure, it had a whole bunch of weird alien tech inside, instead of mops and buckets and stuff, but he’s almost certain some of these are cleaning supplies. Probably.

That was not the most pressing matter, though. The most pressing matter was how close Lance was, both because the closet was small and because Lance had no real concept of personal space. Lance’s hand is still wrapped around Keith’s arm, and Keith is having trouble concentrating when he remembers the way Lance’s hand had wrapped around something else.

“Hunk told me that if we didn’t talk he was going to lock us in a closet. I’m just getting ahead of the game.”

“You didn’t have to actually do this in a closet!”

“Look, I get that you can’t stand to be in my presence for more than 20 seconds, but can you just suck it up so we can figure out what the hell is going on?”

Keith blinks. There is a small glowing light in the closet that is illuminating Lance’s face just enough for Keith to see the hurt expression. “I don’t – that’s not why. It’s not that I can’t stand you, Lance.” _It’s the exact goddamn opposite of that. “_ And hey, Hunk said you were avoiding me too!”

“Yeah, but you were avoiding me first! Look,” he says, talking in a much calmer tone of voice. He is still gripping Keith’s arm. “I know that things are awkward, and that we went through a lot of shit, and that it’s kind of weird, now, because I totally sucked your dick –”

“ _Lance.”_

“But we have to just put that aside, all right! There’s – this is all too important. What we’re doing is too important.” Lance has a sad look on his face. Keith wants to slap it off of him, kiss it off of him, punch _himself_ for putting it there. He wants, desperately, for Lance to not look like that. “We need to go back to being… friendly acquaintances.”

Keith’s eyes widen. “Do you – we were a little more than _friendly acquaintances,_ Lance, Jesus, you were – are, you are my friend. Obviously.”

Lance looks confused. “What do you mean, obviously? What was obvious about it?” His voice is so shrill Keith has to resist the urge to cover his ears.

“I told you I didn’t hate you!”

“Keith, buddy, you’re not exactly the most convincing of people. And then you stopped talking to me! What was I supposed to think?”

“I don’t hate you, Lance. I –” _love you. I’m pretty sure I love you._

“Then why have you not talked to me since we got back?”

“You haven’t been talking to me, either.”

“You started it! I know it’s weird that that Tezzuk shit made us feel stuff and made us do stuff but we need to just… forget about it, pretend it never happened, something –”

“That’s not what happened,” Keith blurts, because Lance is getting that sad look on his face and Jesus, Keith can’t stand it.

“What do you mean, that’s not what happened? I was there, you know.”

“No, I know, I just mean… the pheromones, or whatever. They didn’t…” He runs a hand over his face. His heart is threatening to beat out of his chest, and Lance is _still holding onto his arm._ “They didn’t make us feel stuff, Lance. They took… they took feelings that were already there and made them stronger.”

_It does not create, it magnifies._

Silence fills the closet for a long time. Keith can’t bring himself to look at Lance. It is so quiet it is loud, and all Keith can hear is his heart, and Lance’s hand is squeezing his arm so tightly it hurts.

“Can you, like, run that by me again?”

“Xlegna told me,” Keith says miserably. “They said that whatever the Tezzuk secrete doesn’t create feelings, it just amplifies what was already there. It didn’t make us feel stuff, Lance. It just made us act on it.”

“Hang on,” Lance says. “Hang on, hang on. Are you trying to tell me that this entire time, you’ve liked me, and you have known that I liked you, and yet we haven’t been making out? Is that what I’m hearing?”

“It’s not that simple, Lance.”

“Why not?”

“Because I – you – because you only like me because I’m the only option right now!”

Lance stares at him incredulously. “Keith. We have a space ship that can go _anywhere._ I have more options now than I ever did on earth! I have all of space at my fingertips! Besides, you fucking idiot, I’ve liked you since the Garrison!”

Keith opens his mouth, but no sound comes out. He clears his throat. “Pardon?”

“Jesus, Keith. So you’ve known this the whole time? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because… I didn’t know if you were serious. Or I thought maybe the scent worked differently on humans. Or that –”

Lance kisses him. He finally lets go of Keith’s arm, his hand sliding up into Keith’s hair. Keith flails his arms a little bit before settling them on the front of Lance’s chest.

“Idiot,” Lance mutters, kissing him harder. “Do you know why Hunk told me you were gay?”

“Why?”

“Because he knew how much I liked you. He wanted to let me know it wasn’t _completely_ hopeless. I’ve liked you for ages. Hunk would never have told me such a big secret like that unless he thought something good would come of it.”

This answers a question Keith has been wondering about, but it doesn’t solve the current problems. Lance is nosing at his chin, hand gripping Keith’s hip. Keith wants more than anything to give in, but with great reluctance he pulls away.

“It’s more complicated then that,” he says, pushing Lance lightly away when he tries to kiss his neck.

“What’s complicated about this?”

God, he was so frustrating sometimes. “We’re defenders of the universe, Lance! We’re two fifths of a giant robot! What happens if something bad happens with us and we can’t fix it? What if it gets in the way of what we’re here to do?”

“It won’t.”

Keith scoffs. “How do you know?”

“You told me Shiro and Allura were together, right? It’s clearly working for them.”

“Shiro and Allura are adults! With their shit together!” Lance is still touching him. His hand is cupped around Keith’s arm, thumb rubbing circles, the other one tracing circles into Keith’s hip.

“Okay, I concede that point, but come on, what’s the worst that could happen?”

“We break up and not only do I lose a good friend but we can’t form Voltron and the galaxy is taken over by Galra.”

Lance actually smiles. “Okay, Keith, I’m pretty sure that is what’s called a slippery slope.”

Keith rolls his eyes. “The possibilities are too dangerous.”

“Fine,” Lance says, and Keith eyes him suspiciously. “Then we won’t break up.”

“Lance, be serious.”

“I am being serious. We won’t break up. Do you want to get married? Hunk’s my best man. Shiro will be yours. Pidge can be the ring bearer, or something. Allura will be the flower girl. Coran can marry us.”

“You’re being an idiot.”

“I’m being charming and you know it.”

Keith begrudgingly admits this to himself, although he’ll die before he tells Lance that he thinks he’s charming.

“I just… don’t know how you can be so sure that this whole thing won’t ruin everything.”

Lance’s hand comes up to rest on the back of Keith’s neck, playing with his hair. “I’m the plan guy, remember?”

Keith rolls his eyes. “That’s not –”

Lance kisses him again. After a few moments Keith pulls away. “You can’t just do that every time I’m about to say something you don’t want to hear,” he says, trying and failing to sound annoyed. He might have succeeded if he could stop smiling for ten goddamn seconds.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Say what you were going to say.”

“That’s not how –”

Lance kisses him again. Keith pushes him away, laughing. “You’re the worst.”

Lance laughs. Keith used to hate the sound, how loud it was, but he thinks he was probably just being bitter, because Lance’s laugh is like music, even in it’s loudness, and God, he’s far gone, because he’s literally waxing poetic about Lance’s _laugh,_ Pidge would never let him live this down, but he can’t help it, and so he leans forward and kisses Lance again, wrapping his arms tightly around him and wondering what the fuck he had been so worried about, anyway.

Oh, right. The galaxy.

Oh well, he decides. He’ll trust Lance. He trusted Lance with his life. He might as well trust him with his heart, too.

God, he can never let Pidge know he just thought that.

Lance and him stay like that for a while, and Keith wonders if he’ll ever get tired of kissing Lance. Lance somehow manages to move even closer to him, pushing him back against the wall of the closet, sliding his thigh between Keith’s leg, and Keith can’t help but grind against it slightly. He remembers quite vividly the frenzy that had consumed them during the Tezzuk mating ceremony, but this is way better. This is a slow burn in his stomach, a growing flame of want spreading through his body. He remembers how he wanted to go slowly, before, how he wanted to touch and taste and feel every part of Lance’s body, and realizes that he has time to do that, now.

“Keith,” Lance says breathlessly into his ear. “I know this might be, you know, moving a little fast, but I’ve been thinking about you for _days,_ and before it was – I just wanted to, you know –”

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” he says, too eager to let Lance finish that sentence. “Let’s go to your room.”

Lance pulls back. “I just wanted to know if you wanted to go on a date somewhere.”

Keith turns an awful shade of red, staring at Lance in horror. Lance keeps his innocent expression for all of three seconds before he bursts out laughing.

“No, I’m kidding, but God, you’re cute when you blush.”

Keith sputters. “You fucking –”

Lance kisses him, and Keith’s sputtering turns into another laugh. “Stop doing that!”

“Doing what?” Lance asks innocently. Keith bites Lance’s lip in retaliation, drawing a moan from Lance. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry, let’s go.”

With great difficulty they disentangle themselves and step out of the closet, blinking in the suddenly bright light. Keith is just about to head in the direction of Lance’s room when Lance starts laughing.

“What now?”

“We’re literally coming out of the closet.”

“Have I ever told you how irritating you are?”

“About twice a day every day.”

Keith can’t help but smile, and Lance slips his hand in his, and it feels so natural Keith wonders why they only just started now.

* * *

The next morning there is a knock on the door, and Keith can’t manage to form coherent words quickly enough to stop Lance from getting up and answering it. Keith clues in quickly enough to hide under the blankets, hoping whoever it is doesn’t look too closely at the lump on the bed.

He had slept so well last night, and he had woken with Lance curled around his back, and he isn’t too thrilled at being disturbed.

The door slides open and he recognizes Shiro’s voice. “Lance. Have you seen Keith? He’s not in his room.”

God, of course Shiro chooses now to play the concerned big brother role. Keith pokes his head out from under the blankets and blinks blearily at the figure in the doorway.

“Hi, Shiro,” he says, keeping the blankets drawn up so only the top of his head past his nose is showing, partly to keep from showing Shiro the amount of marks he is certain are decorating his body right now, because Jesus, Lance liked to make marks. Shiro raises an eyebrow.

“Keith. I assume this means this whole thing has been sorted out?”

He nods, too embarrassed to say anything else. Shiro nods, as well, looking between him and Lance. He only just seems to clue in that Lance is half naked. “Well,” he says, trying to remain calm, but Keith knows him well enough to know he’s starting to get embarrassed. “I’ll just be, uh… going.”

Lance gives him a lazy salute and then closes the door, jumping back into bed and landing on Keith’s leg.

“Ow, Lance! Watch it.”

“Your leg was on my side of the bed, it’s your own fault.” Lance buries under the blankets, throwing a leg over Keith and resting his chin on Keith’s shoulder. “We should give the King a basket of flowers.”

Keith snorts. “We should give the King a punch in the face.”

“You’re so unromantic.”

Keith wants to tell him that that’s not true, that he is so head over heels for the idiot beside him that it’s ridiculous, that he is so happy he feels like he’s about to burst. But he doesn’t know how to say those things, and besides, he thinks he should probably wait a little before admitting all that, so instead he just kisses Lance, marvelling at the fact that this is a thing he can do, now, and Lance kisses him back, hand resting on Keith’s hip.

“So when are we going to tell everyone we’re engaged?”

“Don’t ruin the moment.”

“We have to invite Xlegna.”

And for the first time Keith isn’t jealous when Lance mentions them, because Xlegna isn’t the one in bed with Lance right now, are they?

Keith tugs Lance on top of him and thinks that maybe this whole thing hasn’t been the disaster he had thought it was.

They’ll have to get out of bed eventually. They should tell Hunk before he comes looking for them. They also have a galaxy to save.

But that, for now, could wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god my endings are so cheesy 
> 
> anyway, thank you guys so much for reading! i always appreciate your kudos and comments, they make my whole day, and thanks for being so patient for the few months that i kind of just dropped off the face of the earth lmao 
> 
> anyway feel free to drop by my tumblr @grumpyzelda to say hi or leave prompts or just talk about these two fucking idiots lmao


End file.
